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^1 


OF  THB 


[UNIVEES 


ITY^ 


SiL^iPiEim       jKAW^HIEc 


CASPAR    HAUSER, 


ACCOUNT 


OF  AN  INDIVIDUAL  KEPT  IN  A  DUNGEON,  SEPARATED 

FROM  ALL  COMMUNICATION  WITH  THE  WORLD, 

FROM  EARLY  CHILDHOOD  TO  ABOUT  THE 

AGE  OF  SEVENTEEN. 


DRAWN  UP  FROM  LEGAL  DOCUMENTS. 


BY  ANSELM  VON  FEUERBACH, 
President  of  one  of  the  Bavarian  Courts  of  Appeal,  &c. 


Righteous  Heaven,  who  has  permitted 
All  this  wo:    what  fatal  crime, 
Was  by  me',  e'en  at  the  time 
Of  my  hapless  birth,  committed. 

-.^  SiGISMUWD. 

i^^"!^^     j'^  QaXitron's  Life,  a  Dream, 

^i      fSCOND   EDITIOi*. 


BOSTON: 
ALLEN    AND    TICKNOR. 

1833. 


,0^ 


^K^A 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1832, 

By  Allen  and  Ticknor, 

In  the  Clerk's  office  of  tiie  District  Court  of 

Ma^sacliusetts. 


I.    R.    BUTTS,    SCHOOL    STREET. 


DEDICATION. 


TO    HIS    LORDSHIP,   THE    EARL   OF    STANHOPE, 

Peer  of  Great  Britain,  Sec. 

To  no  one  could  this  dedication  have  been 
addressed  with  greater  propriety  than  to  your 
Lordship ;  in  whose  person,  Providence  has 
appointed  to  the  youth,  without  childhood  and 
boyhood,  a  paternal  friend  and  powerful  protec- 
tor. Beyond  the  sea,  in  fair  old  England,  you 
have  prepared  for  him  a  secure  retreat,  until 
the  rising  sun  of  truth  shall  have  dispersed  the 
darkness  which  still  hangs  over  his  mysterious 
fate ;  perhaps,  in  the  remainder  of  his  half 
murdered  life,  he  may  yet  hope  for  days,  for 
the  sake  of  which,  he  will  no  longer  regret 
his  having  seen  the  light  of  this  world.  For 
such  a  deed,  none  but  the  genius  of  humanity 
can  recompense  you. 

In  the  vast  desert  of  the  present  times,  when 
a2 


IT 

the  hearts  of  individuals  are  more  and  more 
shrivelled  and  parched  by  the  fires  of  selfish 
passions,  to  have  met  once  more  with  a  real 
man,  is  one  of  the  most  pleasing  and  indelibly 
impressive  occurrences  which  have  adorned 
the  evening  scenery  of  my  life. 

With  inmost  veneration   and  love,  I  am, 
your  Lordship's  most  obedient  servant, 
VON  FEUERBACH. 


PREFACE. 


In  offering  the  following  pages  to  the  pub- 
lic, it  will  be  necessary  to  say  but  a  very  few 
words  on  the  subject  of  them,  or  of  their  distin- 
guished German  author  and  the  American 
translator,  in  order  to  show  the  peculiar 
claims,  which  they  have  to  the  attention  of  the 
reader.  Caspar  Hauser,  the  subject  of  this 
work,  is  the  individual  of  whom  many  per- 
sons will  recollect  to  have  seen,  some  years 
ago,  an  account  in  the  papers  of  the  day. 
He  was  then  represented  as  having  been 
found  in  Nuremberg  in  a  state,  which 
threw  the  greatest  mystery  over  his  pre- 
vious life.  Hauser  was  at  that  time,  about 
sixteen  or  seventeen  years  old,  had  never 
learned  to  speak,  and  soon  showed  that  h« 
had  been  shut  out  during  his  whole  life  from 
all  communication  with  the  world.  A  nar- 
row, dark  dungeon,  in  which  he  was  always 


obliged  to  remain  in  a  sitting  posture,  so  that 
even  his  bones  had  assumed  a  peculiar  shape, 
had  been  all  the  space  allowed  to  the  unhappy 
being  in  this  wide  world  ;  water  and  coarse 
bread,  all  the  food  he  had  ever  tasted  ;  a  shirt, 
all  his  clothing ;  and  now  and  then  stripes, 
inflicted  by  the  unseen  hand  of  his  fiendish 
keeper,  when  he  happened  to  make  a  noise 
—  all  he  knew  of  any  being  besides  himself 
He  was  but  just  allowed  to  vegetate  —  and 
what  a  wretched  vegetation  !  in  his  forlorn 
condition. 

Great  pains,  as  the  reader  will  see,  have 
been  taken,  without  success,  to  raise  the  veil 
of  mystery  hanging  over  this  foul  transaction, 
continued  even  by  an  attempt  to  murder  the 
youth,  when  it  was  falsely  reported  in  the 
newspapers,  that  he  was  occupied  with  writing 
his  biography.  But  the  great  attention, 
which  was  thus  directed  to  him  has,  though 
unsuccessful  as  to  the  detection  of  the  perpe- 
trators of  the  crime,  not  been  without  its 
fruits,  and  it  may  be  easily  imagined,  how 
interesting  must  be  a  faithful  account,  like 
the  following,  of  the  process  of  physical  and 
intellectual  acclimatisation  to  life,  if  we  may 
be  allowed  to  use  this  expression,  which  a 
youth  must  undergo  to  fit  him  for  society  — 


Vll 


for  life  and  light,  after  his  soul,  intellect  and 
body  had  been  left  from  his  birth  dormant 
and  undeveloped  —  abandoned  to  perfect  soli- 
tude. Light  had  never  shone  upon  this  be- 
ing, neither  on  his  eye,  nor  on  his  soul  ;  and 
when  he  emerged  from  his  lonesome  dark- 
ness, he  was  like  a  new  born  child  in  respect 
to  all  which  must  be  acquired  by  experience, 
whilst  the  instruments  for  acquiring  that  ex- 
perience, the  natural  faculties,  of  course  differ- 
ed from  those  of  a  child  so  far  as  they  are 
affected  by  the  mere  age  or  growth  of  the  in- 
dividual. Thus  he  presented  an  opportunity 
for  observation  of  the  highest  interest  to  the 
psychological  and  moral  philosopher,  the  re- 
ligious teacher,  the  ph}'siologist  and  physi- 
cian —  an  opportunity  which  must  be  as  rare 
as  the  crime  which  has  afforded  it. 

Uncommonly  attractive,  however,  as  the 
account  of  this  interesting  individual  must 
prove  to  every  reflecting  reader,  whether  he 
considers  particularly  the  moral,  the  intellec- 
tual or  physical  condition  of  the  being  describ- 
ed, its  value  is  much  enhanced  to  the  lawyer 
by  the  legal  point  of  view  in  which  its  philoso- 
phical and  eminent  author  in  one  part  of  the 
work  examines  his  subject  as  constituting  a 
species  of  crime,  never  yet  duly  treated  by 


via 

any  code  or  legislation  —  a  view,  forcibly  ex- 
pressed in  the  title  of  the  German  original, 
which  is  thus,  Kaspar  Hauser,  Beispiel 
eines  Verbrechens  am  Seelenhhen  des  Mens- 
cheUj*  which,  literally  translated,  would  be, 
K.  H.  An  Instance  of  a  Crime  against  the 
Life  of  the  Soul  (the  Development  of  all  its 
intellectual,  moral  and  immortal  parts)  of  man. 
We  are  sorry  not  to  be  able  to  preserve  this 
title  in  English,  the  reasons  for  which  how- 
ever, are  obvious.  Mr  Von  Feuerbach  is 
well  known,  as  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
jurists  of  the  age,  both  for  his  extensive  learn- 
ing and  the  philosophical  acuteness  display- 
ed in  his  numerous  works,  chiefly  on  penal 
law.  He,  moreover,  drew  up  the  penal  code 
of  Bavaria,  and  is  at  this  time  president  of 
one  of  the  Bavarian  courts  of  appeal. t  Noth- 
ing indifferent  can  come  from  his  pen,  nothing 
doubtful  be  guaranteed  by  his  name ;  and  it 
is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  the  whole  ac- 
count is  founded  on  official  documents,  wher- 
ever it  pretends  to  give  positive  facts,  and  that 

♦  Ansbach,  1832. 

t  A  sketch  of  Mr  Von  Feuerbach's  life,  and  an  enu- 
meration of  his  principal  works  may  be  found  in  the 
Encyclopedia  Americana. 


the  only  duty  of  those  who  offer  a  work  of  so 
eminent  an  author  to  the  public  of  another 
country,  is  to  give  an  exact  translation. 

In  conclusion,  we  would  mention  that  the 
translator  of  this  work  is  the  same  gentleman, 
who  has  done  himself  so  much  credit  by  an 
English  version  of  Mr  Cousin's  History  of 
Philosophy ,=^  a  task  of  no  common  difficulty, 
and  yet  so  successfully  performed  as  to  be  a 
pledge  for  the  faithful  executionof  the  present 
work.  FRANCIS  LIEBER. 

Boston,  Nov.  1832. 


Note  to  the  Second  Edition.  Though 
but  a  few  months  have  elapsed  since  the  first 
edition  of  this  work  was  issued,  a  second  one 
is  called  for,  which  we  herewith  offer  to  the 
public,  adding  that  no  changes,  except  the 
correction  of  a  few  errata,  have  been  made 
in  it.  F.  L. 


*  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Philosophy  by  Vic- 
tor Cousin,  Professor  of  Philosophy.  Translated 
from  the  French  by  Henning  Gottfried  Linberg.  Bos- 
ton, 1832. 


'     OF  THE 

[U1TI7EIISITT^ 

CASPAR    HAUSER. 


CHAPTER   I. 

Whitmonday  is  at  Nuremberg  a  day  of 
great  festivity  ;  when  most  of  its  inhabitants 
sally  forth  from  the  city,  and  disperse  them- 
selves in  the  neighboring  country  and  vil- 
lages. The  appearance  of  the  city,  which, 
in  consequence  of  the  present  scantiness  of 
its  population,  is  very  straggling,  reminds  us 
on  such  occasions,  and  particularly  in  fine 
spring  weather,  rather  of  an  enchanted  city  in 
the  desert,  than  of  an  active,  bustling,  man- 
ufacturing town  ;  and  many  secret  deeds  may, 
in  situations  remote  from  its  centre,  then  be 
done  publicly,  without  ceasing  to  be  secret. 

It  was  on  Whitmonday,  the  26th  of  May, 
1828,  in  the  evening  between  four  and  five 
o'clock,  that  the  following  occurrence  took 
place. 

A  citizen,  who  lived  at  the  so  called  Un- 
1 


schlitt  place,  near  the  small  and  little  fre- 
quented Haller  gate,  was  still  loitering  before 
his  door,  and  was  about  to  proceed  upon  his 
intended  ramble  through  the  new  gate,  when, 
looking  around  him,  he  remarked  at  a  little 
distance  a  young  man  in  a  peasant's  dress, 
who  was  standing  in  a  very  singular  posture, 
and,  like  an  intoxicated  person,  was  endea- 
voring to  move  forward,  without  being  fully 
able  either  to  stand  upright  or  to  govern  the 
movements  of  his  legs.  The  citizen  ap- 
proached the  stranger,  who  held  out  to  him  a 
letter,  directed  '^  To  his  honor  the  Captain 
of  the  4th  Esgataron  of  the  Shwolishay  re- 
giment. Nuremberg."  As  the  Captain, 
apparently  referred  to,  lived  near  the  New- 
gate, the  citizen  took  the  strange  youth  along 
with  him  to  the  guard  room,  whence  the 
latter  was  conducted  to  the  dwelling  of  Cap- 
tain von  W.  who  at  that  time  commanded 
the  4th  squadron  of  the  6th  regiment  of 
Chevaux  legers,  and  who  lived  in  the  neigh- 
borhood."^    The  stranger  advanced  towards 

*  The  depositions  concerning  what  passed  while 
Caspar  and  the  above  mentioned  citizen  were  on  their 
way  from  the  UnschUtt  place  to  the  guard  room  and 
thence  to  Captain  von  W— 's  dwelling,  are  so  defec- 


the  captain's  servant  who  opened  the  door, 
with  his  hat  on  his  head  and  the  letter  in  his 

tive,  so  unsatisfactory,  and  withal  so  apocryphical,  that 
I  have  thought  proper  to  reduce  their  contents  within 
a  very  narrow  compass.  Thus,  for  instance,  the  citi- 
zen mentioned  before  has  deposed,  that,  after  many 
attempts  to  enter  into  conversation  with  Caspar,  and 
after  having  asked  him  several  questions,  he  at  length 
perceived  that  Caspar  neither  knew  nor  had  the  least 
conception  of  what  he  meant,  and  that  he  therefore 
ceased  to  speak  to  him.  From  this  circumstance  it 
would  appear,  that  Caspar's  conduct  towards  him  was 
the  same  as  it  was  the  same  evening,  at  Captain  von 

W 's,  and  afterwards  at  the  guard  room  ;  and  as 

it  continued  to  be  for  several  days  and  weeks  in  suc- 
cession. Nevertheless  the  same  citizen  has  also 
stated,  that  Caspar  had  replied  to  the  question,  whence 
he  came  ?  "  from  Regensburg."  And  also,  tliat  when 
they  came  to  the  new  gate,  Caspar  had  said ;  "  that 
has  just  been  built  since  they  call  it  the  new  gate," 
&.C.  That  witness  fully  believes  that  he  heard  such 
expressions,  appears  to  me  to  be  as  certain,  as  that 
Caspar  never  said  any  such  thing.  This  is  fully  proved 
by  all  that  follows.  For  it  is  highly  probable  that  the 
words  which  Caspar  repeatedly  uttered  "  Reuta  waehn 
wie  mein  Votta  waehn  is,"  may  have  thus  been 
understood  by  his  conductor,  who  would  scarcely 
have  paid  much  attention  to  the  words  of  such  a 
simpleton  as  he  conceived  him  to  be.  But  upon  the 
whole,  the  official  documents  showing  the  proceedings 
of  the  police  on  this  occasion  prove,  that  they  have 
been  so  irregular  that  the  depositions  taken  contain  f  o 


hand,  with  the  following  words  :  "  ae  sechtene 
mocht  ih  waehn,  wie  mei  Votta  waehn  is." 
The  servant  asked  him  what  he  wanted  ? 
who  he  was  ?  whence  he  came  ?  But  the 
stranger  appeared  to  understand  none  of 
these  questions  5  and  his  only  reply  was  a 
repetition  of  the  words  "  ae  sechtene  mocht 
ih  waehn,  wie  mei  Votta  waehn  is,"  or  "  wo 
as  nit."  He  was,  as  the  captain's  servant 
declared  in  his  deposition,  so  much  fatigued 
that  he  could  scarcely  be  said  to  walk,  but 
rather  to  stagger.  Weeping,  and  with  the 
expression  of  excessive  pain,  he  pointed  to 
his  feet,  which  were  sinking  under  him  ;  and 
he  appeared  to  be  suffering  from  hunger  and 
thirst.  A  small  piece  of  meat  was  handed 
to  him  ;  but  scarcely  had  the  first  morsel 
touched  his  lips,  when  he  shuddered,  the 
muscles  of  his  face  were  seized  with  convul- 
sive spasms,  and,  with  visible  horror  he  spit 
it  out.  He  showed  the  same  marks  of  aver- 
sion when  a  glass  of  beer  was  brought  to  him, 
and  he  had  tasted  a  few  drops  of  it.     A  bit 

many  contradictions  that  the  witnesses  have  been  so 
slightly  examined,  and  that  many  of  their  assertions 
contain  anachronisms  which  are  so  very  palpable  ;  that 
these  documents  cannot,  without  much  caution,  be 
admitted  as  genuine  sources  of  historical-truth. 


of  bread  and  a  glass  of  fresh  water,  he 
swallowed  greedily  and  with  extreme  satis- 
faction. In  the  meantime,  all  attempts  to 
gain  any  information  respecting  his  person  or 
his  arrival  were  altogether  fruitless.  He 
seemed  to  hear  without  understanding,  to  see 
without  perceiving,  and  to  move  his  feet  with- 
out knowing  how  to  use  them  for  the  pur- 
pose of  walking.  His  language  consisted 
mostly  of  tears,  moans,  and  unintelligible 
sounds,  or  of  the  words,  which  he  frequently 
repeated :  ''  Reuta  wahn,  wie  mei  Votta 
wahn  is."  In  the  Captain's  house,  he  was 
soon  taken  for  a  kind  of  savage,  and,  in  ex- 
pectation of  the  captain's  return,  he  was  con- 
ducted to  the  stable,  where  he  immediately 
stretched  himself  on  the  straw,  and  fell  into 
a  profound  sleep. 

He  had  already  slept  for  some  hours,  when 
the  Captain  returned  and  went  directly  to  his 
stable,  in  order  to  see  the  savage  human  be- 
ing of  whom  his  children,  at  his  first  entrance, 
had  related  so  many  strange  things.  He 
still  lay  in  a  profound  sleep.  Attempts  were 
made  to  awaken  him ;  he  was  jogged,  he  was 
shaken  and  thumped,  but  all  to  no  purpose. 
They  raised  him  from  the  ground,  and  en- 
1* 


deavored  to  place  him  on  his  feet.  But  he 
still  continued  to  sleep,  and  seemed,  like  a 
person  apparently  dead,  to  be  distinguishable 
from  one  who  is  really  so,  only  by  his  vital 
heat.  At  length,  after  many  troublesome  and 
painful  experiments  upon  the  sleeper's  capa- 
city of  feeling,  he  opened  his  eyes,  he  awoke, 
he  gazed  at  the  bright  colors  of  the  Captain's 
glittering  uniform  which  he  seemed  to  regard  • 
with  childish  satisfaction,  and  then   groaned 

out  his  "  Reuta,  &tc."     Captain  von  W 

knew  nothing  of  the  stranger,  nor  could  he 
learn  anything  relating  to  him  from  the  letter 
which  he  had  brought.  And  as,  by  question- 
ing, nothing  could  be  got  out  of  him  but, 
"  Reuta  wahn,  he  : "  or  "  woas  nit ;  "  nothing 
remained  to  be  done,  but  to  leave  the  solu- 
tion of  this  riddle  and  the  care  of  the  stran- 
ger's person  to  the  city  police.  He  was  ac- 
cordingly sent  forthwith  to  the  police  office. 
At  about  8  o'clock  in  the  evening  bis 
journey  thither,  which,  in  his  situation,  was 
a  course  of  martyrdom,  was  accomplished. 
In  the  guard  room,  besides  some  of  the 
inferior  magistrates,  several  soldiers  of  the 
police  were  present.  All  of  them  regarded  the 
strange  lad  as  a  most  extraordinary  phenom- 


enon.  Not*  was  it  easy  to  decide  to  which 
of  the  common  rubrlcks  of  police  business 
his  case  appertained.  The  common  offi- 
cial questionSj  what  is  your  name  ?  what  is 
your  business  ?  whence  came  you  ?  for  what 
purpose  are  you  come  ?  where  is  your  pass- 
port ?  and  the  like,  were  here  of  no  avaiL 
"  Ae  Reuta  waehn  wie  mei  Votta  waehn 
is,"  or  ;  "  woas  nit,  "  or,  which  he  also  often 
repeated  in  a  lamentable  tone,  '4ioani 
weissa  ! "  were  the  only  words  which,  on  the 
most  diverse  occasions  he  uttered.* 

He  appeared  neither  to  know  nor  to  suspect 
where  he  was.  He  betrayed  neither  fear, 
nor  astonishment,  nor  confusion  ;  he  rather 
showed  an  almost  brutish  dulness,  which 
either  leaves  external  objects  entirely  unno- 
ticed, or  stares  at  them  without  thought,  and 
suffers  them  to  pass  without  being  effected 
by  them.  His  tears  and  whimpering,  while 
he  was  always  pointing  to  his  tottering  feet, 
and   his   awkward,   and  at  the  same  time 

*  To  these  expressions  and  particularly,  "  Rueta, 
waehn,'*  &c,  he  attached,  as  was  afterwards  discov-^ 
eied,  no  particular  meaning.  They  were  only  sounds, 
which  had  been  taught  him  like  a  parrot,  and  which 
he  uttered  as  the  common  expressions  of  all  his  ideas, 
sensations  and  desires. 


/ 

8 

childish  demeanor  soon  excited  the  compas- 
sion of  all  who  were  present.  A  soldier 
brought  him  a  piece  of  meat  and  a  glass  of 
beer ;  but,  as  at   the  house  of  Captain  von 

W ,  he  rejected  both  with  abhorrence, 

and  ate  only  bread  with  fresh  water.  Another 
person  gave  him  a  piece  of  coin.  At  this 
he  showed  the  joy  of  a  little  child  ;  played 
with  it  and  by  several  times  crying  ross, 
ross,  [horse,  horse]  as  well  as  by  certain 
motions  of  his  hands,  he  seemed  to  express 
his  wish  to  hang  this  coin  about  the  neck  of 
some  horse.  His  whole  conduct  and  demea- 
nor, seemed  to  be  that  of  a  child  scarcely  two 
or  three  years  old,  with  the  body  of  a  young 
man. 

The  only  difference  of  opinion  that  seemed 
to  exist  among  the  greater  part  of  these  po- 
lice men,  was,  whether  he  should  be  consi- 
dered as  an  idiot  or  a  madman,  or  as  a  kind 
of  savage.  One  or  two  of  them  expressed, 
however,  a  doubt,  whether,  under  the  ap- 
pearance of  this  boy  some  cunning  deceiver 
might  not  possibly  be  concealed.  This  sus- 
picion received  no  small  degree  of  confirma- 
tion from  the  following  circumstance.  Some 
person  thought  of  trying  whether  he  could 


write  ;  and  handing  him  a  pen  with  ink,  laid 
a  sheet  of  paper  before  him  with  an  intimation 
that  he  should  write.  This  appeared  to  give 
him  pleasure,  he  took  the  pen,  by  no  means 
awkwardly,  between  his  fingers,  and  wrote, 
to  the  astonishment  of  all  who  were  present, 
in  legible  characters,  the  name,  Kaspar 
Hauser. 

He  was  now  told  to  add  also  the  name  of 
the  place  whence  he  came.  But  he  did  noth- 
ing more  than  occasionally  to  groan  out,  his 
"  Reuta  waehn, "  &;c,  his  *'  hoam  weissa," 
and  his  "  woas  nit." 

As  nothing  more  could  be  done,  for  the 
present,  he  was  delivered  to  a  servant  of  the 
police,  who  conducted  him  to  the  tower  at 
the  Vestner  gate,  which  is  used  as  a  place 
of  confinement  for  rogues,  and  vagabonds, 
&LC.  Upon  this  comparatively  short  way  he 
sank  down  groaning  at  almost  every  step,  if, 
indeed,  his  groping  movements  may  be  called 
steps.  Having  reached  the  small  apartment 
in  which,  together  with  another  prisoner  of 
the  police,  he  was  confined,  he  sank  down 
immediately  upon  his  straw  bed,  in  a  profound 
sleep. 


i 


CHAPTER  II. 

Caspar  Hauser — this  name  he  has  hither- 
to retained  —  wore  upon  his  head,  when  he 
came  to  Nuremberg,  a  round  and  rather 
coarse  felt  hat,  shaped  like  those  worn  in 
cities,  lined  with  yellow  silk,  and  bound  with 
red  leather,  inside  of  which  a  picture  of  the 
city  of  Munchen,  half  scratched  out,  was 
still  visible.  The  toes  of  his  naked  feet  peep- 
ed forth  from  a  pair  of  high  heeled  boots, 
shod  with  iron  shoes  and  nails,  which  were 
much  torn  and  did  not  fit  him.  Around  his 
neck  was  tied  a  black  silk  neck  cloth.  Over 
a  coarse  shirt,*  and  a  half  faded  red  spotted 
stuff  waistcoat  he  wore  a  sort  of  jacket,  such 

*  Which  imprudently,  together  with  the  hoots,  was, 
as  was  asserted,  on  account  of  their  bad  condition,** 
thrown  away  very  soon  after  this  occurrence  took 
place.  So  little  attention  was  paid  to  things  which, 
in  point  of  circumstantial  evidence,  might  have  be- 
come highly  important. 


11 


as  are  commonly  worn  by  country  folks,  and 
called  janker  or  schalk,  but  which,  as  was 
afterwards  proved  by  a  more  minute  inspec- 
tion of  it  and  by  the  declaration  of  compe- 
tent judges,  was  not  originally  cut  out  by  the 
tailor  for  a  peasant  jacket.  It  had  formerly, 
as  also  appears  from  the  cut  of  its  cape,  been 
a  frock  coat,  of  which  the  skirts  had  been  cut 
off  and  the  upper  part  sewed  up  with  coarse 
stitches  by  a  hand  unaccustomed  to  tailor's 
work.  Also  the  pantaloons  which  were  made 
of  gray  cloth  of  a  somewhat  finer  quality,  and 
which,  like  overalls  for  riding,  were  lined  be- 
tween the  legs  with  the  same  cloth,  seemed 
originally  to  have  belonged  rather  to  some 
footman,  groom,  or  forester,  than  to  a  peasant. 
Caspar  wore  a  white  handkerchief  with  red 
crossed  stripes,  marked  in  red  with  the  ini- 
tials K.  H.  Besides  some  blue  and  white 
figured  rags,  a  key  of  german  manufacture, 
and  a  paper  of  gold  sand  —  which  no  one 
surely  would  look  for  in  a  peasant's  cottage — 
there  were  found  in  his  pocket  a  small  horn 
rosary,  and  a  pretty  considerable  store  of 
spiritual  wealth,  viz.  besides  manuscript  cath- 
olic prayers,  several  printed,  spiritual  publi- 


12 


cations,  such  as,  in  the  south  of  Germany  and 
particularly  at  places  to  which  pilgrims  resort, 
are  commonly  offered  in  exchange  for  good 
money,  to  the  faithful  multitude.  In  some, 
the  places  where  they  were  printed  were  not 
named.  Others  appeared  to  have  been  print- 
ed at  Altottingen,  Burghausen,  Salzburg, 
and  Prague.  Their  edifying  tides  were,  for 
instance,  "  Spiritual  sentinel," —  "  Spiritual 
forget  me  not"  —  "  A  very  powerful  prayer 
by  virtue  of  which  one  may  participate  in  the 
benefits  of  all  holy  masses,"  &:c  :  —  "  Pray- 
er to  the  holy  guardian  angel,"  —  Prayer 
to  the  holy  blood,"  he.  One  of  these  pre- 
cious little  spiritual  works,  entitled  :  "  The  art 
of  regaining  lost  time  and  years  misspent" 
(without  mentioning  the  year  of  publication) 
seems  to  contain  a  scoffing  allusion  to  the  life 
which  this  youth,  according  to  what  he  after- 
wards related,  had  hitherto  led.  Judging 
from  ihese  spiritual  donations,  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  that  the  hands  concerned  in  this 
transaction  were  not  exclusively  secular. 
The  letter  addressed,  without  naming  him/ 
to  the  Captain  of  the  fourth  Squadron  of  the 
sixth   regiment  of    Chevaux-legers,  which 


^^       OF  THE  ^ 

Caspar  held  in  his  hand  when  hemS^  ap^oar^-"""^^ 
ed  in  Nuremberg,  runs  as  follows  :* 

**■  From  a  place,  near  the  Bavarian  frontier  which  shall 

be  nameless,  1828. 

"HIGH   AND    WELL    BORN   CapTAIN  ! 

"  I  send  you  a  boy  who  wishes  faithfully 
to  serve  his  king.  This  boy  was  left  in  my 
house  the  7th  day  of  October,  1812  ;  and  I 
am  myself  a  poor  day  laborer,  who  have  also 
ten  children  and  have  enough  to  do  to  main- 
tain my  own  family.  The  mother  of  the 
child  only  put  him  in  my  house  for  the  sake 
of  having  him  brought  up.  But  I  have  never 
been  able  to  discover  who  his  mother  is ; 
nor  have  I  ever  given  information  to  the  pro- 
vincial court  that  such  a  child  was  placed  in 
my  house.  I  thought  I  ought  to  receive  him 
as   my  son.     I   have  given  him  a  christian 

*  This  letter  agrees  in  the  German  original  literally 
with  the  manuscript  alluded  to  ;  which,  from  its  style 
and  orthography,  appears  evidently  to  have  been  in- 
tended to  pass  for  the  production  of  some  ignorant 
peasant.  No  attempt  has  been  made  by  the  translator 
to  retain,  in  this  respect,  its  original  character.  It  has 
been  simply  translated  into  plain  English,  according  to 
what  appeared  to  be  the  most  obvious  signification  of 
the  words,  whose  meaning  however  is  not  in  all  its 
parts  perfectly  intelligible. 
2 


14 


education ;  and  since  18121  have  never  suf- 
fered him  to  take  a  single  step  out  of  my 
house.  So  that  no  one  knows  where  he  was 
brought  up.  Nor  does  he  know  either  the 
name  of  my  house  or  where  it  is.  You  may 
ask  him,  but  he  cannot  tell  you.  1  have  al- 
ready taught  him  to  read  and  write,  and  he 
writes  my  handwriting  exactly  as  I  do.  And 
when  we  asked  him  what  he  would  be,  he 
said  he  would  be  one  of  the  Chevaux-legers, 
as  his  father  was.  If  he  had  had  parents  dif- 
ferent from  what  he  has,  he  would  have  be- 
come a  learned  lad.  If  you  show  him  any- 
thing, he  learns  it  immediately.  I  have  only 
showed  him  the  way  to  Neumark,  whence  he 
was  to  go  to  you.  I  told  him,  that  when  he 
had  once  become  a  soldier  I  should  come  to 
take  him  home,  or  I  should  lose  my  head. 
Good  Mr  Captain,  you  nee'd  not  try  him ;  he 
does  not  know  the  place  where  1  am.  I  took 
him  away  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  and  he 
knows  not  the  way  home. 

"  I  am  your  most  obedient  servant.  1  do 
not  sign  my  name,  for  I  might  be  punished. 
He  has  not  a  kreutzer  of  money  ;  because  I 
have  none  myself.     If  you  do  not  keep  him, 


15 


you  may  get  rid  of  him,  or  let  him  be  scram- 
bled for." 

With  this  letter,  which  was  written  in  Ger- 
man characters,  the  following  note,  written  in 
Latin  characters,  but  evidently  by  the  same 
hand,  was  inclosed  : 

"  The  child  is  already  baptised.  You  must 
give  him  a  surname  yourself.  You  must  ed- 
ucate the  child.  His  father  was  one  of  the 
Chevaux-legers.  When  he  is  17  years  old 
send  him  to  Nuremberg  to  the  sixth  Chevaux- 
leger  regiment,  for  there  his  father  also  was. 
I  ask  for  his  education  until  he  is  seventeen 
years  old.  He  was  born  the  30th  of  April, 
1812.  I  am  a  poor  girl  and  cannot  support 
him.     His  father  is  dead." 

Caspar  Hauser"^  was,  when  he  appeared 
at  Nuremberg,  four  feet  nine  inches  in 
height  and  about  from  sixteen  to  seventeen 
years  old.  His  chin  and  lips  were  very 
thinly  covered   with   down ;  the    so   called 

*  The  following  description  of  his  person  is  not  taken 
from  the  records  of  the  police,  where  it  was  not  to  be 
found  ;  but  from  my  own  observations  and  from  the 
witten  notes  of  persons  on  whom  full  reliance  may 
be  placed. 


16 


wisdom  teeth  were  yet  wanting;  nor  did 
they  make  their  appearance  before  the 
year  1831.  His  light  brown  hair,  which 
was  very  fine  and  curled  in  ringlets,  was  cut 
according  to  the  fashion  of  peasants.  The 
structure  of  his  body,  which  was  stout  and 
broad  shouldered,  showed  perfect  symmetry 
without  any  visible  defect.  His  skin  was  fine 
and  very  fair  ;  his  complexion  was  not  florid, 
but  neither  was  it  of  a  sickly  hue  ;  his  limbs 
were  delicately  built ;  his  small  hands  were 
beautifully  formed  ;  and  his  feet,  which  show- 
ed no  marks  of  ever  before  Having  been  con- 
fined or  pressed  by  a  shoe,  were  equally  so. 
The  soles  of  his  feet,  which  were  without  any 
horny  skin,  were  as  soft  as  the  palms  of  his 
hands  ;  and  they  were  covered  all  over  with 
blood  blisters,  the  marks  of  which  were  some 
months  later  still  visible.  Both  his  arms 
showed  the  scars  of  inoculation ;  and  on  his 
right  arm,  a  wound  still  covered  with  a  fi*esh 
scab  was  observable,  which,  as  Caspar  after- 
wards related,  was  occasioned  by  a  blow 
given  him  with  a  slick  or  a  piece  of  wood  by 
the  man  "  with  whom  he  had  always  been," 
because  he  had  made  rather  too  much  noise. 
His  face  was  at  that  time  very  vulgar :  when 


17 


in  a  state  of  tranquillity  it  was  almost  without 
any  expression ;  and  its  lower  features,  be- 
ing somewhat  prominent,  gave  him  a  brutish 
appearance.  The  staring  look  of  his  blue 
but  clear  and  bright  eyes  had  also  an  ex- 
pression of  brutish  obtuseness."*  The  forma- 
tion of  his  face  altered  in  a  few  months  al- 
most entirely  5  his  countenance  gained  ex- 
pression and  animation,  the  prominent  lower 
features  of  his  face  receded  more  and  more, 
and  his  earlier  physiognomy  could  scarcely 
any  longer  be  recognised.  His  weeping  was 
at  first  only  an  ugly  contortion  of  his  mouth ; 
but,  if  anything  pleasant  affected  his  mind,  a 
lovely,  smiling,  heart  winning  sweetness  dif- 
fused over  all  his  features  the  irresistible  charm 
that  lies  concealed  in  the  joy  of  an  innocent 
child.  He  scarcely  at  all  knew  how  to  use 
his  hands  and  fingers.  He  stretched  out 
his  fingers,  stiff  and  straight  and  far  asunder, 
with  the  exception  of  his  first  finger  and 

*  The  author  expressed  at  that  time,  his  wish  that 
Caspar's  picture  might  be  taken  by  a  skilful  portrait 
painter ;  because  he  felt  assured  that  his  features 
would  soon  alter.  His  wish  was  not  gratified,  but 
bis  prediction  was  very  soon  fulfilled. 

2* 


18 


thumb,  whose  tips  he  commonly  held  to* 
gether  so  as  to  form  a  circle.  Where  others 
applied  but  a  few  fingers  he  used  his  whole 
hand  in  the  most  uncouth  and  awkward 
manner  imaginable.  His  gait,  like  that  of 
an  infant  making  its  first  essays  in  leading 
strings,  was  properly  speaking  not  a  walk  but 
rather  a  waddling,  tottering,  groping  of  the 
way,  —  a  painful  medium  between  the  mo- 
tion of  falling  and  the  endeavor  to  stand  up- 
right. In  attempting  to  v/alk,  instead  of  first 
treading  firmly  on  his  heel,  he  placed  his 
heels  and  the  balls  of  his  feet  at  once  to  the 
ground,  and  raising  both  feet  simultaneously 
with  an  inclination  of  the  upper  part  of  his 
body,  he  stumbled  slowly  and  heavily  for- 
ward, with  out-stretched  arms,  which  he 
seemed  to  use  as  balance  poles.  The  slight- 
est impediment  in  his  way  caused  him  often, 
in  his  little  chamber,  to  fall  flat  on  the  floor. 
For  a  long  time  after  his  arrival  he  could  not 
go  up  or  down  stairs  without  assistance. 
And  even  now,  it  is  still  impossible  for  him 
to  stand  on  one  foot  and  to  raise,  to  bend,  or 
to  stretch  the  other,  without  falling  down. 
The  following  results  of  a  medical  examina- 


19 


tion  of  the  body  of  Caspar  Hauser,  made  by 
order  of  a  court  of  justice  in  the  year  1830, 
furnish  us  with  the  following  highly  inter- 
esting data  which  throw  much  light  upon 
the  circumstances  of  his  life. 

"  The  knee,"  says  Dr  Osterhausen  in  his 
report,  '^  exhibits  a  remarkable  deviation  from 
the  usual  formation.  In  the  natural  structure 
of  the  part,  the  patilla  or  kneepan  forms  a 
prominence  anteriorly  during  the  extension 
of  the  leg.  But  in  Hauser  it  lay  in  a  con- 
siderable depression.  In  a  limb  naturally 
formed,  the  four  extensor  muscles  of  the  leg, 
the  vastus  externus  and  the  vastus  internus, 
the  rectus  femoris  and  the  crureus  are  attach- 
ed by  a  common  tendon  to  a  protuberance 
of  the  tibia  or  shin  bone,  after  having  formed 
an  intimate  connexion  with  the  kneepan. 
But  in  Hauser  the  tendon  was  divided  ;  and 
the  two  tendons  of  the  external  and  internal 
vasti  muscles  proceeded  separately  down  the 
leg  to  the  outer  and  inner  sides  of  the  tuber- 
cle of  the  tibia,  and  were  inserted  below  the 
tubercle  into  this  bone.  Between  these  two 
tendons  lay  the  patilla.  This  unusual  forma- 
tion of  the  part,  together  with  a  remarkable 


20 


developement  of  the  two  tendons,  occasioned 
the  depression  in  which  the  patilla  was  situ- 
ated. When  Hauser  sits  down,  with  the 
thigh  and  leg  extended  horizontally  on  the 
floor,  the  back  forms  a  right  angte  with  the 
flexure  of  the  thigh,  and  the  knee  joint  lies 
extended  so  close  to  the  floor  that  not  the 
smallest  hollow  is  perceptible  in  the  ham. 
A  common  playing  card  could  scarcely  be 
thrust  between  the  ham  and  the  floor." 


CHAPTER    III. 

The  surprise  occasioned  by  Caspar  Hau- 
ser's  first  appearance  soon  settled  down  into 
the  form  of  a  dark  and  horrid  enigma,  to  ex- 
plain which  various  conjectures  were  resorted 
to.  By  no  means  an  ideot  or  a  madman,  he 
was  so  mild,  so  obedient  and  so  good-natured, 
that  no  one  could  be  tempted  to  regard  this 
stranger  as  a  savage,  or  as  a  child  grown  up 
among  the  wild  beasts  of  the  forest.  And 
yet  he  was  so  entirely  destitute  of  words  and 
conceptions,  he  wasi§o  totally  unacquainted 
with  the  most  common  objects  and  daily  oc- 
currences of  nature,  and  he  showed  so  great 
an  indifference,  nay,  such  an  abhorrence,  to 
all  the  usual  customs,  conveniences,  and 
necessaries  of  life  ;  and  at  the  same  time  he 
evinced  such  extraordinary  peculiarities  in 
all  the  characteristics  of  his  mental,  moral 
and  physical  existence,  as  seemed  to  leave  us 


22 


no  other  choice,  than  either  to  regard  him  as 
the  inhabitant  of  some  other  planet,  miracu- 
lously transferred  to  the  earth,  or  as  one  who, 
(like  the  man  whom  Plato  supposes)  had  been 
born  and  bred  under  ground,  and  who,  now 
that  he  had  arrived  to  the  age  of  maturity, 
had  for  the  first  time  ascended  to  the  surface 
of  the  earth  and  beheld  the  light  of  the  sun. 
Caspar  showed  continually  the  greatest 
aversion  to  all  kinds  of  meat  and  drink,  ex- 
cepting dry  bread  and  water.  Without  swal- 
lowing or  even  tasting  them,  the  very  smell 
of  most  kinds  of  our  common  food  was  suf- 
ficient to  make  him  shudder  or  to  affect  him 
still  more  disagreeably.  The  least  drop  of 
wine,  of  cofiee,  or  the  like,  mixed  clandes- 
tinely with  his  water,  occasioned  him  cold 
sweats,  or  caused  hiojfc  to  be  seized  with 
vomiting  or  violent  headache.*^ 

*  It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  in  the  whole 
city  of  Nuremberg  not  a  single  individual  was  to 
be  found  who  possessed  scientific  curiosity  sufficient 
to  induce  him  to  make  this  person  the  subject  of 
physiological  inquiries.  Even  the  chemical  analysis 
of  the  saliva,  or  other  substances  ejected  by  this 
young  man,  who  had  been  solely  fed  on  bread  and 


23 


A  certain  person  made,  somewhere,  the 
attempt  to  force  some  brandy  upon  him  on 
pretence  that  it  was  water ;  scarcely  had  the 
glass  been  brought  to  his  lips,  when  he  turn- 
ed pale,  sunk  down,  and  would  have  fallen 
backward  against  a  glass  door,  if  he  had  not 
been  instantly  supported. —  Once  when  the 
prison  keeper  had  prevailed  upon  him  to 
take  some  coffee  in  his  mouth,  although  he 
could  scarcely  have  swallowed  a  single  drop 
of  it,  his  bowels  were  in  consequence  thereof 
repeatedly  affected.  —  A  few  drops  of  beer 
made  o(  malted  wheat,  though  much  di- 
luted with  water,  gave  him  a  violent  pain  in 
his  stomach,  accompanied  with  so  great  a 
heat  that  he  was  all  over  dripping  with  per- 
spiration ;  which  was  succeeded  by  an  ague 
attended  with  headache  and  violent  eructa- 

water,  might  alone  have  furnished  many  not  unimpor- 
tant scientific  results ;  which  results  would  at  the  same 
time  have  verified,  as  it  were  with  intuitive  certainty, 
the  highly  important  juridical  fact  that  Caspar  had 
been  really  fed  on  nothing  but  bread  and  water.  But 
at  the  time  wh3n  the  judicial  authorities,  after  many 
fruitless  endeavors  on  their  part,  were  at  length  placed 
in  a  proper  situation  to  engage  in  the  examination  of 
Hauser's  case,  every  opportunity  of  making  amends 
for  what  had  been  lost  by  such  omissions  had  long 
passed  by. 


24 


tions.  —  Even  milk,  whether  boiled  or  fresh, 
was  unpalatable  to  him,  and  caused  him  dis- 
gusting eructations.  —  Some  meat  was  once 
concealed  in  his  bread ;  he  smelt  it  imme- 
diately, and  expressed  a  great  aversion  to 
it,  but  he  was  nevertheless  prevailed  upon  to 
eat  it ;  and  he  felt  afterwards  extremely  ill 
in  consequence  of  having  done  so.  During 
the  night,  which,  with  him,  commenced  re- 
gularly with  the  setting,  and  ended  with  the 
rising  of  the  sun,  he  lay  upon  his  straw  bed  5 
in  the  day  time  he  sat  upon  the  floor  with  his 
legs  stretched  out  straight  before  him.  When 
in  the  first  days,  he  saw  for  the  first  time  a 
lighted  candle  placed  before  him  he  was  de- 
lighted with  the  shining  flame,  and  unsus- 
pectingly put  his  fingers  into  it ;  but  he  soon 
drew  it  back,  crying  out  and  weeping. 
Feigned  cuts  and  thrusts  were  made  at  him 
with  a  naked  sabre,  in  order  to  try  what  might 
be  their  effect  upon  him  ;  but  he  remained 
immoveable,  without  even  winking  ;  nor  did 
he  seem  to  harbor  the  least  suspicion  that 
any  harm  could  thus  be  done  to  him.* 

**  It  is  even  said  that  by  way  of  an  amusing  experi- 
ment, a  pistol  or  some  otlier  piece  of  fire  arms  was 
once  discharged  at  him. 


25 


When  a  looking  glass  was  once  held  before 
him,  he  caught  at  his  own  reflected  image, 
and  then  looked  behind  it  to  find  the  person 
whom  he  supposed  to  be  concealed  there. 
Like  a  little  child,  he  endeavored  to  lay  hold 
on  every  glittering  object  that  he  saw ;  and 
when  he  could  not  reach  it,  or  when  he  was 
forbidden  to  touch  it,  he  cried.  Some  days 
after  his  arrival^  Caspar  was  conducted,  un- 
der the  escort  of  two  police  men,  around  the 
city,  in  order  to  discover  whether  he  could 
recognise  the  gate  through  which  he  had  en- 
tered. But,  as  might  have  been  foreseen, 
he  knew  not  how  to  distinguish  the  one  from 
the  other;  and,  upon  the  whole,  he  appeared 
to  take  no  notice  whatsoever  of  what  was 
passing  before  his  eyes.  When  objects  were 
brought  more  than  ordinarily  near  to  him, 
he  gazed  at  them  with  a  stupid  look,«  which, 
only  in  particular  instances,  was  expressive 
of  curiosity  and  astonishment.  He  was  in 
possession  of  only  two  words  which  he  oc- 
casionally used  for  the  purpose  of  designating 
living  creatures.  Whatever  appeared  to  him 
in  a  human  form  he  called,  without  any  dis- 
tinction of  sex  or  age,  "  bua  ;"  and  to  every 
3 


26 


animal  that  he  met  with,  whether  quadruped 
or  biped,  dog,  cat,  goose,  or  fowl,  he  gave 
the  name  of  "  ross"  (horse.)  If  such  horses 
were  white  he  appeared  to  be  pleased ;  black 
animals  were  regarded  by  him  with  aversion 
and  fear.  A  black  hen,  advancing  towards 
him,  once  put  him  in  great  fear ;  he  cried 
out,  and,  though  his  feet  refused  to  perform 
their  office,  he  made  every  effort  to  run 
away  from  her. 

Not  only  his  mind  but  many  of  his  senses 
appeared  at  first  to  be  in  a  state  of  torpor, 
and  only  gradually  to  open  to  the  perception 
of  external  qbjects.  It  was  not  before  the 
Ispse  of  several  days  that  he  began  to  notice 
the  striking  of  the  steeple  clock,  and  the 
ringing  of  the  bells.  This  threw  him  into 
the  greatest  astonishment,  which  at  first  was 
expressed  only  by  his  listening  looks  and  by 
certain  spasmodic  motions  of  his  countenance ; 
but  it  was  soon  succeeded  by  a  stare  of 
benumbed  meditation.  Some  weeks  after- 
wards the  nuptial  procession  of  a  peasant 
passed  by  the  tower  with  a  band  of  music 
close  under  his  window.  He  suddenly  stood 
listening,  motionless  as  a  statue  ;  his  counteu- 


27 


ance  appeared  to  be  transfigured,  and  his 
eyes  as  it  were  to  radiate  his  ecstasy ;  his 
ears  and  eyes  seemed  continually  to  follow 
the  movements  of  the  sounds  as  they  reced- 
ed more  and  more ;  and  they  had  long 
ceased  to  be  audible,  while  he  still  continued 
immovably  fixed  in  a  listening  posture,  as  if 
unwilling  to  lose  the  last  vibrations  of  these, 
to  him,  celestial  notes,  or  as  if  his  soul  had 
followed  them  and  left  its  body  behind  it,  in 
torpid  insensibility.  Certainly  not  by  way 
of  making  any  very  judicious  trial  of  Caspar's 
musical  taste,  this  being,  whose  extraordinary 
nervous  excitability  was  already  sufficiently 
apparent,  was  once,  at  a  military  parade, 
placed  very  near  to  the  great  regimental 
drum.  He  was  so  powerfully  affected  by 
its  first  sounds,  as  to  be  immediately  thrown 
into  convulsions,  which  rendered  his  instanta- 
neous removal  necessary. 

Among  the  many  remarkable  phenomena 
which  appeared  in  Caspar's  conduct,  it  was 
soon  observed  that  the  idea  of  horses  and 
particularly  of  wooden  horses,  was  one  which 
in  his  eyes  must  have  acquired  no  small  de- 
gree of  importance.     The   word   "  Ross'* 


28 


(horse)  appeared  in  his  dictionary,  which 
contained  scarcely  half  a  dozen  words,  to 
fill  the  greatest  space.  This  word  he  pro- 
nounced on  the  most  diverse  occasions,  more 
frequently  than  any  other,  and  often  indeed 
with  tears  in  his  eyes,  and  with  a  plaintive, 
beseeching  tone  of  voice,  which  seemed  to 
express  a  longing  for  some  particular  horse. 
Whenever  any  trifle,  as  for  instance  a  glitter- 
ing coin,  a  ribbon,  a  little  picture,  &c,  was 
given  him,  he  cried  :  "  Ross  !  Ross  !"  and 
notified  by  his  looks  and  motions  his  wish  to 
hang  all  these  pretty  things  upon  a  horse. 
Caspar,  who — not  indeed  to  any  great  advan- 
tage of  his  mental  development,  or  to  the 
making  of  such  accurate  observations  on  his 
peculiarities  as  the  rarity  of  such  a  phe- 
nomenon rendered  desirable — was  daily  con- 
ducted to  the  guard  room  of  the  police,  be- 
came there  as  it  were  domesticated,  and 
gained  the  good  will  and  affection  of  all  its 
constant  attendants.  The  words  "  Ross ! 
Ross !  "  which,  also  here,  he  so  often  repeat- 
ed, suggested  to  one  of  the  police  soldiers, 
who  had  always  taken  the  most  notice  of  this 
singular   amalgamation  of  adolescence  and 


29 


childhood,  the  idea  of  bringing  him,  at  the 
guard  room,  a  toy  of  a  wooden  horse.  Cas- 
par, who  had  hitherto  on  almost  all  occasions 
showed  the  greatest  insensibility  and  indiffer- 
ence, and  who  generally  seemed  much  de- 
jected, appeared  now  to  be  as  it  were  sud- 
denly transformed,  and  conducted  himself  as 
if  he  had  found  in  this  little  horse  an  old 
and  long  desired  friend.  Without  noisy 
demonstrations  of  joy,  but  with  a  counte- 
nance smiling  in  his  tears,  he  immediately 
seated  himself  on  the  floor  by  the  side  of 
the  horse,  stroked  it,  patted  it,  kept  his  eyes 
immovably  fixed  upon  it,  and  endeavored  to 
hang  upon  it  all  the  variegated,  glittering  and 
tinkhng  trifles  which  the  benevolence  of 
those  about  him  had  presented  to  him.  Only 
now  that  he  could  decorate  his  little  horse 
with  them,  all  these  things  appeared  to  have 
acquired  their  true  value.  When  the  hour 
arrived  when  he  was  to  leave  the  police 
guard  room,  he  endeavored  to  lift  up  the 
horse,  in  order  to  take  it  along  with  him  ;  and 
he  wept  bitterly  when  he  found  that  his  arras 
and  legs  were  so  weak  that  he  could  not  lift 
3* 


30 

his  favorite  over  the  threshold  of  the  door.* 
Whenever  he  afterwards  returned  to  the 
guard  room,  he  immediately  placed  himself 
on  the  floor  by  the  side  of  his  dear  little 
horse^  without  paying  the  least  attention  to 
the  people  who  were  about  him.  "  For  hours 
together,"  said  one  of  the  police  soldiers  in 
the  declaration  which  he  afterwards  made 
before  the  police  court,  "  Caspar  sat  playing 
with  his  horse  by  the  side  of  the  stove,  with- 
out attending  in  the  least  to  anything  that 
passed  around  him  or  by  his  side." 

But  also  in  the  tower,  in  his  small  cham- 
ber and  sitting  room,  he  was  soon  supplied 
not  only  with  one  but  with  several  horses. 
These  horses  were  henceforward,  whenever 
he  was  at  home,  his  constant  companions 
and  playmates,  which  he  never  suffered  to 
be  removed  from  his  side,  of  which  he 
never  lost  sight,  and  with  which  —  as  could 

*  He  was  for  a  long  time  afterwards,  extremely 
weak  in  his  arms  as  well  as  in  his  feet.  It  was  not 
before  the  month  of  September,  1828,  after  he  had 
already  commenced  to  eat  meat,  tliat  his  strength  was, 
by  continued  exercise,  so  far  increased,  as  to  enable 
him  to  lift  a  weight  of  twentyfive  pounds  with  both 
his  hands  a  little  way  from  the  ground. 


31 


be  observed  through  a  concealeS'^Tjpenmg' 
made  in  the  door — he  continually  employed 
himself.  Every  day,  every  hour  resembled 
the  other  in  this,  that  all  of  them  were 
passed  by  Caspar  sitting  on  the  floor  by  the 
side  of  his  horses,  with  his  legs  stretched 
out  before  him,  and  continually  employed  in 
ornamenting  them  one  way  or  another,  with 
ribbons  and  strings,  or  with  bits  of  colored 
paper,  sometimes  bedecking  them  with  coins, 
bells,  and  spangles,  and  sometimes  appearing 
to  be  immersed  in  the  thought  how  this  de- 
coration might  be  varied  by  successively 
placing  these  articles  in  different  positions. 
He  also  often  dragged  his  horses  backwards 
and  forwards  by  his  side,  without  changing 
his  place  or  altering  his  position  ;  yet  this 
was  done  silently  and  very  carefully,  for  fear, 
as  he  afterwards  said,  that  the  rolling  of  the 
wheels  might  make  a  noise  and  he  might  be 
beaten  for  it.  He  never  ate  his  bread  with- 
out first  holding  every  morsel  of  it  to  the 
mouth  of  some  one  of  his  horses ;  nor  did 
he  ever  drink  water  without  first  dipping 
their  mouths  in  it,  which  he  afterwards  care- 
fully wiped  oflf.     One  of  these  horses  was  of 


32 


plaster,  and  its  mouth  was  consequently  very 
soon  softened.  He  could  not  conceive  how 
this  happened ;  because  he  perceived  that 
the  mouths  of  his  other  horses,  although 
they  also  were  immersed  in  water,  remained 
unaltered.  The  prison  keeper,  to  whom 
with  tears  in  his  eyes  he  showed  the  misfor- 
tune that  had  befallen  his  plaster  horse,  com- 
forted him  by  insinuating  that  "  this  horse  did 
not  like  to  drink  water."  In  consequence 
of  this  information  he  ceased  to  water  it,  as 
he  believed  that  the  horse,  by  this  visible 
deformity  of  his  mouth,  indicated  his  dislike 
to  water.  The  prison  keeper,  who  saw 
what  pains  Caspar  took  to  feed  his  horses 
with  his  bread,  endeavored  to  make  him  un- 
derstand that  these  horses  could  not  eat.  — 
But  Caspar  thought  he  had  sufficiently  re- 
futed him  by  pointing  to  the  crumbs  which 
stuck  in  their  mouths.  —  One  of  his  horses 
had  a  bridle  in  its  mouth  which  was  wide 
open  5  hence  he  also  made  a  bridle  of  gold 
spangles  joined  together  for  his  other  horse ; 
and  he  took  great  pains  to  induce  it  to  open 
its  mouth  and  to  let  him  place  the  bridle 
into  it,  —  an  attempt  in  which  he  persisted, 


33 


for  two  whole  days  with  unwearied  persever- 
ance. Having  once  fallen  asleep  on  a  rock- 
ing horse,  he  fell  down  and  squeezed  his 
finger ;  upon  which  he  complained  that  the 
horse  had  bitten  him. — As  he  was  once 
dragging  one  of  his  horses  over  the  floor,  its 
hind  feet  having  got  into  a  hole,  it  reared  up. 
At  this  occurrence  he  expressed  the  most 
lively  satisfaction;  he  afterwards  frequently 
repeated  a  spectacle  which  appeared  to  him 
so  very  remarkable,  and  he  treated  all  his 
visitors  to  a  sight  of  it.  When  the  prison 
keeper  afterwards  expressed  his  displeasure 
at  his  always  showing  the  same  thing  to 
every  body,  he  ceased  indeed  to  do  so ;  but 
he  cried  at  his  being  no  longer  permitted  to 
show  his  rearing  horse.  Once,  when,  in 
rearing,  this  horse  fell  down,  he  ran  to  it  with 
precipitate  tenderness,  and  expressed  his 
sorrow  that  it  had  hurt  itself.  But  he  was 
quite  inconsolable,  when  the  prison  keeper 
once  drove  a  nail  into  one  of  his  horses. 

From  this,  as  well  as  from  many  other 
circumstances,  it  may  well  be  supposed,  and 
it  afterwards  proved  to  be  quite  certain,  that, 
in  his  infantine  soul,  ideas  of  things  animate  or 


34 


inanimate,  organic  or  unorganized,  or  of  what 
is  produced  by  nature  or  formed  by  art,  were 
still  strangely  mingled  together. 

He  distinguished  animals  from  men  only 
by  their  form,  as  men  from  women  only  by 
their  dress ;  and  the  clothing  of  the  female 
sex  was,  on  account  of  its  varied  and  striking 
colors,  far  more  pleasing  to  him  than  that  of 
males ;  on  which  account  he  afterwards  also 
frequently  expressed  his  desire  to  become  a 
girl ;  that  is,  to  wear  female  apparel.  That 
children  should  become  grown  people,  was 
quite  inconceivable  to  him  ;  and  he  was  par- 
ticularly obstinate  in  denying  this  fact,  when 
he  was  told  that  he  himself  had  once  been  a 
little  child,  and  that  he  would  probably  grow 
much  taller  than  he  then  was.  Nor  was  he 
convinced  of  its  truth,  until  some  months 
afterwards,  when  repeated  trials,  made  by 
marking  his  measure  upon  the  wall,  proved  to 
him  by  experience  the  fact  of  his  own  and 
indeed  very  rapid  growth. 

Not  a  spark  of  religion,  not  the  smallest 
particle  of  any  dogmatic  system  was  to  be 
found  in  his  soul ;  how  great  soever  the  ill 
timed  pains  might  be  which,  immediately  or 


35 


in  the  first  week  after  his  arrival,  were  taken 
by  several  clergymen  to  seek  for  and  to 
awaken  them.  Indeed,  no  animal  could  have 
shown  itself  more  unable  to  comprehend,  or 
to  form  any  conception  of  what  they  meant 
by  all  their  questions,  discourses  and  sermons, 
than  Caspar.  All  the  religion  that  he  brought 
with  him,  (if  the  name  may  without  scandal  be 
thus  misapplied,)  was  that,  with  which  the 
stupid  piety  of  devout  villains  had  furnished 
his  pockets,  at  his  first  exposure  in  Nurem- 
berg. 

It  may  perhaps  not  be  uninteresting,  to 
hear  the  observations  made  on  Caspar's  con- 
duct and  demeanor,  during  his  abode  in  the 
tower,  by  a  plain  but  sensible  man,  the  prison 
keeper  Hiltel,  who  had  the  care  of  him  for 
several  weeks.  His  declaration  contained 
in  the  protocol,  as  far  as  it  relates  to  this 
subject,  is  to  the  following  effect:  "Soon 
after  I  had  *for  some  time  silently  observed 
the  pretended  Caspar  Hauser,  I  was  fully 
convinced  that  he  was  by  no  means  an  idiot 
or  one  who  had  been  neglected  by  nature, 
but  that  he  must  in  some  inconceivable  man- 
ner have  been  deprived  of  all  means  of  culti- 


36 


vating  and  developing  his  mind.  To  relate 
all  the  innumerable  proofs  of  this  which  are 
contained  in  various  phenomena  that  I  have 
observed  in  Hauser^s  conduct,  would  extend 
my  narration  to  too  great  a  length.  During 
the  first  days  of  his  abode  with  me,  his  con- 
duct was  precisely  that  of  a  little  child,  and 
displayed  in  every  respect  nothing  but  nature 
and  innocence.  On  the  fourth  or  fifth  day, 
he  was  removed  from  the  upper  and  more 
closely  confined  part  of  the  tower  prison  to 
the  lower  story,  in  which  I  lived  with  my 
family,  and  he  was  lodged  in  a  small  cham- 
ber, which  was  so  arranged,  that  I  could 
constantly  observe  his  movements,  without 
his  being  able  to  perceive  it.  Here  1  have, 
in  obedience  to  the  orders  given  me  by  the 
burghermaster,  frequently  noticed  his  con- 
duct when  he  was  alone ;  and  I  have  always 
found  it  to  be  perfectly  uniform.  He  amused 
himself,  when  alone,  with  his  playthings,  in 
the  same  natural  and  unaffected  manner  as 
when  he  was  in  my  presence.  For,  in  the 
beginning,  when  he  was  once  fully  occupied 
with  his  playthings,  it  was  of  no  consequence 
whatsoever  what  else  occurred  around  him  ; 


37 


for  he  took  not  the  slightest  notice  of  it.  I 
must  however  remark,  that  the  pleasure  which 
he  thus  took  in  childish  playthings,  did  not 
continue  very  long.  When  once  his  mind 
had  been  directed  to  more  serious  and  more 
useful  occupations,  and  had  become  accus- 
tomed to  them,  he  no  longer  took  delight  in 
playing.  His  whole  demeanor  was,  so  to 
speak,  a  perfect  mirror  of  childlike  innocence. 
There  was  nothing  deceitful  in  him ;  his  ex- 
pressions exactly  corresponded  with  the  dic- 
tates of  his  heart,  that  is,  as  far  as  the  poverty 
of  his  language  would  admit  of  it.  When 
once  my  wife  and  myself  undressed  him,  in 
order  to  cleanse  his  body,  he  gave  full 
proof  of  his  innocence  and  ignorance ;  his 
conduct,  on  that  occasion,  was  precisely  that 
of  a  child;  quite  natural  and  unembarrassed.* 

*  Noi  long  afterwards,  however,  a  feeling  of  modesty 
"was  awakened  in  him ;  and  he  then  became  as  bashful 
as  the  most  chaste  and  delicate  maiden.  An  exposure 
of  his  person  he  now  regards  with  horror.  After  the 
wild  Brazilian  girl  Isabella,  whom  Messrs  Spix  and 
Martins  had  brought  to  Munchen,  had  lived  for 
some  time  among  civilized  people  and  worn  clothes, 
it  was  not  without  much  trouble,  nor  yet  without 
threats  and  blows,  that  she  could  be  brought  to  undress 
herself  that  her  shape  might  be  drawn  by  an  artist, 

4 


S8 


After  he  had  got  his  playthings,  and  after 
other  persons  had  been  admitted  to  him,  I 
sometimes  permitted  my  son  Julius,  who  is 
eleven  years  old,  to  go  to  see  him.  He  as 
it  were  taught  him  to  speak,  showed  him 
how  to  form  his  letters,  and  communicated  to 
him  such  conceptions  as  he  himself  possessed. 
I  also  sometimes  permitted  my  daughter 
Margaret,  a  little  girl  of  three  years  old,  to  go 
into  his  room.  He  at  first,  took  great  delight 
in  playing  with  her,  and  she  taught  him  to 
string  glass  beads.  This  amusement  ceased 
to  give  him  satisfaction,  as  soon  as  he  be- 
gan to  grow  tired  of  inanimate  playthings. 
During  the  latter  part  of  his  abode  with  me, 
he  derived  his  greatest  pleasure  and  amuse- 
ment from  drawings  and  copperplates,  which 
he  stuck  to  the  walls  of  his  chamber." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

In  a  very  few  days  after  his  first  arrival, 
Caspar  was  no  longer  considered  in  the  tower 
as  a  prisoner,  but  as  a  forsaken  and  neglected 
child,  who  needed  to  be  cared  for  and  edu- 
cated. The  prison  keeper  admitted  him  to 
his  family  tabic,  where,  although  he  would 
not  partake  of  any  food,  yet  he  learned  to 
sit  in  a  proper  manner,  to  use  his  hands  as  a 
human  being  and  to  become  acquainted  with 
and  to  imitate  many  of  the  customs  of  civil- 
ized life.  Most  willingly  did  he  play  with  the 
children  of  the  keeper ;  who,  on  their  part, 
were  by  no  means  disinclined  to  amuse  them- 
selves with  this  good-natured  youth,  whose 
excessive  ignorance  was  diverting,  even  to 
children.  But  particularly  Julius,  who  was 
eleven  years  old,  became  greatly  attached  to 
Caspar,  and  felt  his  incipient  vanity  not  a 
Kttk  flattered  by  the  occupation  of  teaching 


40 


this  robust  youth,  around  whose  chin  the  first 
rudiments  of  a  beard  had  already  begun  ta 
sprout  —  how  to  speak.  Curiosity  soon 
brought,  every  day  and  even  every  hour, 
muhitudes  of  people  around  him,  of  whom 
few  were  willing  to  content  themselves  with 
merely  gazing  at  the  tame  savage.  Most  of 
them  found  some  means  of  busying  them- 
selves with  liim  in  one  way  or  another.  Some 
indeed,  regarded  him  only  as  an  object  of 
amusement,  or  of  experiments  by  no  means 
scientlfical.  Yet,  there  were  many  who  con- 
versed with  him  rationally,  and  who  endea- . 
vored  to  awaken  his  mind  to  a  communica- 
tion of  ideas.  One  pronounced  words  and 
phrases  which  he  made  him  repeat,  another 
strove  by  signs  and  gestures  to  make  unknown 
things  known,  and  unintelligible  things  intelli- 
gible to  him.  Everything,  even  every  play- 
thing, by  the  gift  of  which  the  kind  inhabi- 
tants of  Nuremberg  expressed  their  good 
will  and  attention  to  the  poor  youth,  supplied 
him  with  new  materials  of  thought,  and  tended 
to  increase  the  wealth  of  his  mind,  with  the 
acquisition  of  new  conceptions  and  with  the 
knowledge  of  significant  sounds.     Yet  the 


41 


principal  advantage  which  accrued  to  him 
from  this  frequent  intercourse  with  human 
beings,  was  its  tendency  to  awaken  his  mind 
more  and  more  to  attention,  to  reflection  and  |[ 
to  active  thought,  accordingly  as  his  self  con- 
sciousness became  more  clear.  This,  again, 
rendered  the  want  of  communicating  his 
thoughts  to  others  daily  more  perceptible  to 
him ;  and  thus,  the  instinctivel}?  operative 
and  inventive  teacher  of  languages  within 
him,  was  continually  kept  actively  employed. 
About  a  fortnight  after  Caspar's  arrival  in 
Nuremberg,  he  was  most  providentially  fa- 
vored with  a  visit  from  the  worthy  professor 
Daumer,  an  intelligent  young  scholar,  who  in 
the  kindly  feelings  of  his  humane  heart  dis- 
covered a  peculiar  vocation,  to  devote  him- 
self to  the  mental  development,  education 
and  instruction  of  this  unfortunate  youth, — 
as  far  as  the  eager  importunity  of  curious 
visitors  and  other  impediments  and  interrup- 
tions permitted  him  to  do  so.  Caspar  would 
not  have  possessed  so  active  a  mind,  so  fer- 
vent a  zeal  to  lay  hold  on  everything  that 
was  new  to  him,  so  vivid,  so  youthfully  pow- 
erful, and  so  faithfullv  retentive  a  memory, 
4^ 


42 


as,  to  the  astonishment  of  all,  he  evinced,  xf^ 
with  such  assistance,  he  had  not  very  soon 
learned  to  speak,  sufficiently,  at  least,  in 
some  degree  to  express  his  thoughts.  Yet, 
his  first  attempts  to  speak  remained  for  along 
time  a  mere  chopping  of  words,  so  miserably 
defective  and  so  awkwardly  helpless,  that  it 
was  seldom  possible  to  ascertain,  with'^any 
certainty,  what  he  meant  to  express  by  the 
fragments  of  speech  which  he  jumbled  to- 
gether. Continuity  of  speech  or  consistency 
of  narration,  was  by  no  means  to  be  expect- 
ed from  him  ;  and  much  was  always  left  to 
be  supplied  by  the  conjectures  of  the  hearer* 
To  the  burgermaster,  Mr  Binder,  Caspar 
was  not  only  an  object  of  deep  interest,  in  as 
far  as  his  humane  feeilngs  were  concerned, 
but  he  claimed  his  particular  attention  in  the 
performance  of  his  official  duties  as  the  head 
of  the  police  ;  and  to  this  most  extraordinary 
subject  of  police  inquiry  he  devoted  a  very 
large  portion  of  his  time  and  attention.  It 
was  indeed  sufficiently  apparent,  that  the 
every-day  forms  of  official  business  were  ill 
adapted  to  this,  by  no  means  every-day  oc- 


43 


curi*etice  }^  and  that  formal  official  mquirieiS 
and  examinations  could  not  be  expected  to 
throw  any  light  whatsoever  upon  this  mys- 
tery. Mr  Binder  therefore  very  properly 
chose,  in  the  present  case,  to  avoid  the  em- 
barrassing restrictions  of  legal  forms,  by  means 
of  extra-official  proceedings.  He  caused 
Caspar,  almost  every  day,  to  be  brought  to 
his  house,  and  made  him  feel,  as  it  were,  at 
home  in  his  family.  He  conversed  with  him, 
and  made  him  talk  as  well  as  he  could  ;  add 
thus  he  endeavored,  by  frequently  ques- 
tioning and  cross-questioning  him  to  obtain 
some  information  concerning  the  events  of 
his  life,  and  his  arrival  It  was  in  this 
mannerj  that  Mr  Binder  at  length  succeed- 
ed, or  thought  that  he  had  succeeded,  in 
extracting  from  isolated  answers  and  expres- 
sions of  Caspar,  the  materials  of  a  histo^ 
ry,  which  was,  already,  on  the  seventh  of 

*  But  then,  the  rash  attempt  ought  ftot  afterwards 
to  have  been  made,  to  give,  at  a  later  period,  to  trans- 
actions which  were  only  of  a  private  nature,  the  ap- 
parent form  of  official  inquiries ;  which  gives  to  the 
public  documents  appertaining  to  this  case  a  very  sin- 
gular appearance. 


44 


July  the  same  year,  given  to  the  public,  in 
the  form  of  an  official  promulgation.*  This 
promulgation  —  if  we  may  call  it  so  —  con- 
tains indeed,  in  many  of  its  minute  details, 
which  have  too  confidently  been  given  with 
unnecessary  prolixity,  much  that  is  incredi- 
ble and  contradictory.  Nor  is  it  an  easy 
matter  to  discriminate,  in  every  particular  in- 
stance, between  what  really  appertains  to  the 
person  questioned,  and  what  in  fact  belongs 
to  those  who  questioned  him  ;  —  between 
what  really  flowed  from  Caspar's  obscure  re- 
collections, and  what,  by  dint  of  repeated 
questions,  may  have  been  insinuated  into  his 
mind,  in  such  a  manner,  as  to  have  been  in- 
voluntarily confounded  by  him  with  things 
actually  stored  up  in  his  memory.  Many 
incidents  mentioned,  may  have  been  supplied, 
or  may  at  least  have  received  a  finish,  from 
the  conjectures  of  others  ;  and  the  introduc- 
tion of  many,  may  even  be  owing  to  miscon- 
ceptions, resulting  from  the  impossibility  of 
always  understanding  what  was  meant  by  the 

*  It  is  this  promulgatiou,  which  has  hitherto  served 
for  the  foundation,  upon  which  all  accounts  that  have 
hitherto  heen  given  of  Caspar  in  journals  and  pamphletf 
have  been  made  to  rest. 


Xv^        01    THE  ^ 

expressions  of  a  half  dumb  hun5S^^mmal,  so 
very  destitute,  as  Caspar  was  at  that  time,  of 
distinct  conceptions  of  the  most  common  ob- 
jects and  every-day  occurrences  of  nature 
and  of  life.  Yet,  upon  the  whole,  that  is, 
as  far  as  the  principal  and  most  essential  facts 
which  it  relates  are  concerned,  this  historical 
narrative  agrees  perfectly  with  the  contents 
of  a  written  memoir,  which  was  afterwards 
composed  by  Hauser  himself,  and  sworn  to 
by  him,  before  a  court  of  justice,  held  for  the 
purpose  of  inquiring  into  this  affair,  in  1829  ; 
as  it  also  agrees,  with  what  he  has,  on  differ- 
ent occasions,  invariably  related  to  the  author 
and  to  many  other  persons,  precisely  to  the 
same  effect.  The  account  which  he  gave 
was  as  follows: 

"  He  neither  knows  who  he  is,  nor  where 
his  home  is.  It  was  only  at  Nuremburg  that 
he  came  into  the  world.*  Here  he  first 
learnt  that,  besides  himself  and  '  the  man 
with  whom  he  had  always  been,'  there  ex- 

*  An  expression  which  he  often  uses  to  designate 
his  exposure  in  Nuremburg,  and  his  first  awakening 
to  the  consciousness  of  mental  hfe. 


46 


isted  other  men  and  other  creatures.  As 
long  as  he  can  recollect  he  had  always 
lived  in  a  hole,  (a  small  low  apartment 
which  he  sometimes  calls  a  cage,)  where 
he  had  always  sat  upon  the  ground,  with 
bare  feet,  and  clothed  only  with  a  shirt 
and  a  pair  of  breeches."*^  In  his  apart- 
ment he  never  heard  a  sound,  whether  pro- 
duced by  a  man,  by  an  animal,  or  by  any- 
thing else.  He  never  saw  the  heavens,  nor 
did  there  ever  appear  a  brightening  (day- 
light) such  as  at  Nuremberg.  He  never  per- 
ceived any  difference  between  day  and  night, 
and  much  less  did  he  ever  get  a  sight  of  the 
beautiful   lights    in   the   heavens.      When- 

*  According  to  a  more  particular  account  given  by- 
Caspar  —  which  is  fully  confirmed  by  marks  upon  his 
body  which  cannot  be  mistaken,  by  the  singular  forma- 
tion of  his  knee  and  knee  hollow,  and  by  his  peculiar 
mode  of  sitting  upon  the  ground  with  his  legs  extend- 
ed which  is  possible  to  himself  alone,  —  he  never, 
even  in  his  sleep,  lay  with  his  whole  body  stretched 
out,  but  sat,  waking  and  sleeping,  with  his  back  sup- 
ported in  an  erect  posture.  Some  peculiar  property 
of  his  place  of  rest,  and  some  particular  contrivance 
must  probably  have  made  it  necessary  for  him  to  re- 
main constantly  in  su  ch  a  position.  He  is  himself  un- 
able to  give  any  further  Information  upon  this  sub- 
ject. 


47 


ever  he  awoke  from  sleep,  he  found  a  loaf 
of  bread  and  a  pitcher  of  water  by  him. 
Sometimes  this  water  had  a  bad  taste  ;  when- 
ever this  was  the  case,  he  could  no  longer 
keep  his, eyes  open,  but  was  compelled  to 
fall  asleep ;  *  and,  when  he  afterwards  awoke, 
he  found  that  he  had  a  clean  shirt  on,  and 
that  his  nails  had  been  cut.f  He  never  saf/ 
the  face  of  the  man  who  brought  him  his 

*  That  this  water  was  mixed  with  opium  may  well 
be  supposed  ;  and.  the  certainty,  that  this  was  really 
the  fact,  was  fully  proved  on  the  following  occasion. 
After  he  had  for  some  time  lived  with  Professor  Dau- 
mer,  his  physician  attempted  to  administer  to  him  a 
drop  of  opium  in  a  glass  of  water.  Caspar  had  scarcely 
swallowed  the  first  mouthful  of  this  water,  when  he 
said  :  "  that  water  is  nasty ;  it  tastes  exactly  like  the 
water  I  was  sometimes  obliged  to  drink  in  my  cage." 

t  Hence,  as  well  as  from  other  circumstances,  it  is 
evident,  that  Caspar  was  during  his  incarceration  al- 
ways treated  with  a  certain  degree  of  careful  attention. 
And  this  accounts  for  the  attachment  which  he  long 
retained  to  the  man  "  with  whom  he  had  always  been." 
This  attachment  ceasedj  only  at  a  very  late  period  ; 
yet,  never  to  such  a  degree  as  to  make  him  wish  that 
this  man  should  be  punished.  He  wished  that  those 
should  be  punished  by  whose  orders  he  had  been  con  - 
fined ;  but  he  said,  that  that  man  had  done  him  no 
harm. 


48 


meat  and  drink.  In  his  hole  he  had  two 
wooden  horses  and  several  ribbons.  With 
these  horses  he  had  always  amused  himself 
as  long  as  he  was  awake  ;  and  his  only  oc- 
cupation was,  to  make  them  run  by  his  side 
and  to  fix  or  tie  the  ribbons  about  them  in 
different  positions.  Thus,  one  day  had 
passed  as  the  other ;  but  he  had  never  felt 
the  want  of  anything,  had  never  been  sick, 
and  —  once  only  excepted  —  had  never 
felt  the  sensation  of  pain.  Upon  the  whole, 
he  had  been  much  happier  there  than  in  the 
world,  where  he  was  obliged  to  suffer  so 
much.  How  long  he  had  continued  to  live 
in  this  situation  he  knew  not ;  for  he  had  had 
no  knowledge  of  time.  He  knew  not  when, 
or  how  he  came  there.  Nor  had  he  any 
recollection  of  .ever  having  been  in  a  differ- 
ent situation,  or  in  any  other  than  in  that 
place.  The  man  with  whom  he  had  always 
been,  never  did  him  any  harm.  Yet  one 
day,  shortly  before  he  was  taken  away, — 
when  he  had  been  running  his  horse  too 
hard,  and  had  made  too  much  noise,  the  man 
came  and  struck  him  upon  his  arm  with  a 
stick,  or  with  a  piece  of  wood ;  this  caused 


49 


the  wound  which  he  brought  with  him  to 
Nuremberg." 

"  Pretty  nearly  about  the  same  time,  the 
man  once  came  into  his  prison,  placed  a  small 
table  over  his  feet,  and  spread  something  white 
upon  it,  which  he  now  knows  to  have  been 
paper ;  he  then  came  behind  him,  so  as  not 
to  be  seen  by  him,  took  hold  of  his  hand, 
and  moved  it  backwards  and  forwards  on  the 
paper,  with  a  thing  (a  lead  pencil)  which  he 
had  stuck  between  his  fingers.  He  (Hau- 
ser)  was  then  ignorant  of  what  it  was  5  but 
he  was  mightily  pleased,  when  he  saw  the 
black  figures  which  began  to  appear  upon 
the  white  paper.  When  he  felt  that  his  hand 
was  free,  and  the  man  was  gone  from  him, 
he  was  so  much  pleased  with  this  new  dis- 
covery, that  he  could  neven  grow  tired  of 
drawing  these  figures  repeatedly  upon  the 
paper.  This  occupation  almost  made  him 
neglect  his  horses,  although  he  did  not  know 
what  those  characters  signified.  The  man 
repeated  his  visits  in  the  same  manner  several 
times."^ 

*  Of  the  fact  that  Caspar  really  had  had  instruction 
and  indeed  regular  elementary  instruction  in  writing 
5 


50 


"  Another  tirae  the  man  came  again,  lifted 
him  from  the  place  where  he  lay,  placed  him 

he  gave  evident  proofs,  immediately  on  the  first  morn- 
ing after  his  arrival  in  Nuremberg.  When  the  prison 
keeper  Hiltel  came  to  him  that  morning,  in  the  prison, 
he  gave  him,  in  order  to  employ  or  to  amuse  him,  a 
sheet  of  paper  with  a  lead  pencil.  Caspar  seized 
eagerly  on  both,  placed  the  paper  upon  the  bench  and 
began  and  continued  to  write,  without  intermission, 
and  without  ever  looking  up  or  suffering  himself  to 
be  disturbed  by  anything  that  passed,  until  he  had 
filled  the  whole  folio  sheet,  on  all  four  sides,  with  his 
writing.  The  appearance  of  this  sheet,  which  has 
been  preserved  and  affixed  to  the  documents  furnished 
by  the  police,  is  much  the  same  as  if  Caspar,  who 
nevertheless  wrote  from  memory,  had  had  a  copy  ly- 
ing before  him,  such  as  are  commonly  set  before 
children  when  they  are  first  taught  to  write.  For, 
the  writing  upon  this  sheet  consisted  of  rows  of  letters, 
or  rows  of  syllables  ;  so  that,  almost  everywhere,  the 
same  letter  or  the  same  syllable  is  constantly  repeat- 
ed. At  the  bottom  of  each  page,  all  the  letters  of  the 
alphabet  are  also  placed  together,  in  the  same  order  in 
which  they  actually  succeed  each  other,  as  is  com- 
monly the  case  in  copies  given  to  children  ;  and,  in 
another  line,  the  numerical  cyphers  are  placed,  from 
1  to  0,  in  their  proper  order.  On  one  page  of  this 
sheet,  the  name  "  Kaspar  Hauser  "  is  constantly  re- 
peated ;  and,  on  the  same  sheet,  the  word  reider 
(Reuter,  rider,)  frequently  occurs,  yet  this  sheet  also 
proves,  that  Caspar  had  not  progressed  beyond  the 
first  elements  of  writing. 


51 


on  his  feet,  and  endeavored  to  teach  him  to 
stand.  This  he  repeated  at  several  different 
times.  The  manner  in  which  he  effected 
this,  was  the  following  :  he  seized  him  firmly 
around  the  breast,  from  behind  ;  placed  his 
feet  behind  Caspar's  feet,  and  lifted  these, 
as  in  stepping  forward." 

'^  Finally,  the  man  appeared  once  again, 
placed  Caspar's  hands  over  his  shoulders, 
tied  them  fast,  and  thus,  carried  him  on  his 
back  out  of  the  prison.  He  was  carried  up 
(or  down)  a  hill.*  He  knows  not  how  he 
felt ;  all  became  night,  and  he  was  laid  upon 
his  back.''  This  "  becoming  night,"  as  ap- 
peared on  many  different  occasions  at  Nu- 
remberg signified,  in  Caspar's  language,  "  to 
faint  away."  The  account  given  of  the  con- 
tinuation of  his  journey,  is  principally  con- 

*  It  is  evident,  and  other  circumstances  prove  it  to 
be  a  fact,  that  Caspar  could  not  yet,  at  that  time,  dis- 
tinguish the  motion  of  ascending  from  that  of  descend- 
ing, or  height  from  depth,  even  as  to  the  impressions 
made  upon  his  own  feelings  ;  and  that  he  was  conse- 
quently still  less  able  to  designate  this  difference  cor- 
rectly by  means  of  words.  What  Caspar  calls  a  hill, 
must  in  all  probability  have  been  a  pair  of  stairs.  Cas- 
par also  thinks  he  can  recollect,  that  in  being  carried 
he  brushed  against  something  by  his  side. 


52 


fined  to  the  following  particulars  :  "  that  he 
had  often  lain  with  his  face  to  the  ground,  in 
which  cases  it  becanie  night ;  that  he  had 
several  times  eaten  bread  and  drunk  water ; 
that  the  man,  "  with  whom  he  had  always 
been,"  had  often  taken  pains  to  teach  him  to 
walk,  which  always  gave  him  great  pain,  &;c." 
This  man  never  spoke  to  him ;  excepting, 
that  he  continually  repeated  to  him  the  words 
"  Renta  wahn,"  &lc.*  He  (Caspar)  never 
saw  the  face  of  the  man  either  on  this  journey 
or  ever  before  in  prison.  Whenever  he  led 
him,  he  directed  him  to  look  down  upon  the 
ground  and  at  his  feet, — an  injunction  which 
he  always  strictly  obeyed  ;  partly  from  fear, 
and  partly  because  his  attention  was  suffi- 
ciently occupied  with  his  own  person  and  the 
position  of  his  feet.  Not  long  before  he  was 
observed  at  Nuremberg,  the  man  had  put 
the  clothes  upon  him  which  he  then  wore. 

The  putting  on  of  his  boots  gave  him  great 
pain ;  for  the  man  made  him  sit  on  the  ground, 
seized  him  from  behind,  drew  his  feet  up, 
and  thus  forced  them  into  the  boots.     They 

*  This  jargon  seems  to  imply  ••  I  will  be  a  rider  (a 
trooper)  as  my  father  was." 


53 


then  proceed  onwards  still  more  miserably 
than  before.  He  neither  then,  nor  ever  be- 
fore, perceived  anything  of  the  objects  around 
him ;  he  neither  observed  nor  saw  them ; 
and  he  could  therefore  not  tell  from  what 
part  of  the  country,  in  what  direction,  or  by 
what  road  he  came.  All  that  he  wa  s  con- 
scious of,  was  that  the  man  who  had  been  lead- 
ing him  put  the  letter  which  he  had  brought 
with  him  into  his  hand,  and  then  vanished  ; 
after  which,  a  citizen  observed  him  and  took 
him  to  the  guard-room  at  the  new  gate. 
This  history  of  the  mysterious  imprison- 
ment and  exposure  of  a  young  man,  pre- 
sents, not  only  a  fearful,  but  a  most  singular 
and  obscure  enigma  ;  which  may  indeed  give 
rise  to  innumerable  questions  and  conjectures, 
but,  in  respect  to  which,  little  can  be  said 
with  certainty ;  and  which,  until  its  solution 
shall  have  been  found,  must  continue  to  re- 
tain, in  common  with  all  enigmas,  the  pro- 
perty of  being  enigmatical.  Caspar's  mental 
condition  during  his  dungeon  life,  must  have 
been  that  of  a  human  being,  immersed,  in 
his  infancy,  in  a  profound  sleep,  in  which 
he  was  not  conscious  even  of  a  dream,  or  at 
5* 


64 


Ife^st  of  any  succession  of  dreams.  Me  had 
continued  in  this  stupor,  until,  afrighted  with 
pain  and  apprehensions,  he  suddenly  awoke^ 
stunned  with  the  wild  and  confused  noised 
and  the  unintelligible  impressions  of  a  Varie- 
gated world)  without  knowing  what  had  hap- 
pened. Whoever  should  expect,  that  such  a 
being,  when  arrived  at  a  full  state  of  conscious* 
ness,  should  be  able  to  give  a  perfectly  clear 
and  circumstantial  historical  description  of 
his  slumbers  and  his  dreamsj  which  should 
satisfy  the  understandingj  so  as  to  remove 
every  doubt)  would  expect  nothing  lesSj  than 
that  a  sleeper  should  sleeping  have  been 
awakC)  or  that  a  waking  person  should  while 
awake,  have  slept 

There  still  exist  certain  regions  in  Ger-^ 
tnany,  to  which,  if  a  second  Dupin  were  to 
furnish  maps  depicting  the  illuminatioti  of  the 
human  mind  in  different  countries)  he  would 
give  a  coloring  of  dark  gray,  where  occur-* 
rences  similar  to  those  which  Hauser  has 
related,  are  by  no  means  unheard  of.  Dr 
Horn"^  for  instance,  saw  in  the  infifmary  at 

*  In  his  travels  through  Germany.     (S§.e  Getting* 
Bche  gelehrte  Anzeige.    July,  1831.  p.  1097.) 


56 


Salzburg,  but  a  few  years  ago,  a  girl  of  twenty- 
two  years  of  age  and  by  no  means  ugly,  who 
had  been  brought  up  in  a  hogstye  among  the 
hogs,  and  who  had  sat  there  for  many  years 
with  her  legs  crossed.  One  of  her  legs  was 
quite  crookedj  she  grunted  like  a  hog,  and 
her  gestures  were  brutishly  unseemly  in  a 
human  dress.  In  comparison  with  such 
abominations,  the  crimes  committed  against 
Caspar  Hauser  may  even  be  considered  as 
acts  in  which  the  forbearance  of  humanity  is 
still  visible.  That  Caspar  should  be  unable 
to  give  any  account  of  the  mode  and  manner 
in  which  he  was  conveyed  to  Nuremberg, 
or  to  furnish  any  recitals  or  descriptions  of 
the  adventures  of  his  journey,  of  the  places 
through  which  he  passed,  or  of  any  of  the 
Usual  occurrences  which  strike  the  attention 
of  travellers)  whatever  may  be  their  mode  of 
conveyance,  is  so  far  from  being  astonishing, 
that  the  case  could  not  have  been  otherwise 
without  the  intervention  of  a  miracle.  Even 
if  Caspar  had  before  he  left  his  prison  awoke 
to  a  state  of  clear  and  rational  self-conscious- 
ness ;  if,  like  Sigismund  in  his  tower,  he  had 
by  means  of  education  and  the  cultivation  of 


56 


his  mind  attained  to  the  maturity  of  a  young 
man;  yet,  the  sudden  transition  from  the 
close  confinement  and  gloomy  obscurity  of 
his  dungeon,  could  not  have  failed  to  throw 
him  either  into  fainting  fits  or  into  a  state  very 
similar  to  that  of  excessive  intoxication. 
The  unwonted  impressions  made  by  the  ex- 
ternal air  must  have  stunned  him,  and  the 
bright  sun-Hght  blinded  his  eyes.  Yet  even 
with  seeing  and  unblinded  eyes,  he  would 
have  seen  nothing ;  —  at  least  he  would  have 
observed  and  taken  cognizance  of  nothing. 
For  nature,  with  all  her  phenomena,  must 
at  that  time  have  shone  before  his  eyes,  with 
the  glare  of  one  confusedly  diversified  and 
checkered  mass,  in  which  no  single  object 
could  be  distinguished  from  another.  That 
this  was  really  the  case,  even  at  Nuremberg, 
was,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  confirmed  in 
the  most  unequivocal  manner  by  actual  ex- 
perience. From  what  part  of  the  country  was 
Caspar  brought?  upon  what  road,  and  through 
which  gate  did  he  arrive  ?  was  his  journey 
performed  on  foot,  or  in  a  carriage  or  a  wag- 
on ?  To  these  and  to  similar  questions,  the 
answers,  even  if  they  could  be  given  with 


57 


perfect  certainty,  would  be  such  as  would 
interest  rather  the  judge,  who  might  be  called 
upon  to  examine  and  to  decide,  than  the 
public.  Caspar  himself,  remembers  only 
his  having  walked  ;  without,  however,  being 
able  to  add  anything,  which  might  lead  to 
probable  conjectures  concerning  the  time 
consumed,  or  the  length  of  the  way  passed 
over,  in  walking.  That  he  has  no  recollec- 
tion of  having  rode  in  a  carriage  or  wagon, 
does  not  however  prove  that  he  may  not 
nevertheless,  and  perhaps  for  the  greater  part 
of  the  way,  have  been  thus  conveyed.  Cas- 
par, sinks,  even  yet,  whenever  he  rides  in  a 
carriage  or  a  wagon,  into  a  kind  of  death 
sleep,  from  which  he  does  not  easily  awake, 
whether  the  vehicle  stops  or  rolls  on ;  and 
in  this  state,  how  roughly  soever  it  may  be 
done,  he  may  be  lifted  up  or  laid  down,  and 
packed  or  unpacked  without  his  having  the 
least  perception  of  it.  When  sleep  has  once 
laid  hold  of  him,  no  noise,  no  sound,  no  re- 
port, no  thunder  is  loud  enough  to  wake  him. 
If  Caspar  —  which  from  his  own  account  ap- 
pears probable  —  fainted  away  whenever  he 
was  brought  into  the  open  air,  if  his  con- 


58 


ductors,  for  the  sake  of  greater  security, 
made  him  drink  some  of  the  ill-tasted  water 
(opium  diluted  with  water)  ;  they  may,  with 
the  greatest  safety,  have  thrown  him  into  a 
wagon,  and  driven  him  many  a  day's  journey, 
without  any  fear  of  his  awakening,  crying  out, 
or  occasioning  his  kidnappers  the  least  in- 
convenience. Mr  Schmidt  of  Lubeck,  has, 
in  his  book  Uber  Kaspar  Hauser  (Altona, 
1831,)  given  many  ingenious  reasons  for  his 
conjecture,  that  Caspar  was  brought  to  Nu- 
remberg from  some  place  in  its  immediate 
vicinity.  For  this,  as  well  as  for  other  con- 
jectures, this  history  leaves  ample  room. 
That  the  person  by  whom  Caspar  was  brought 
to  Nuremberg,  must  have  been  one  who  was 
well  acquainted  with  Nuremberg  and  its  lo- 
cality, is  certain ;  and,  that  he  must  in  former 
times  have  served  as  a  soldier  in  one  of  the 
regiments  stationed  there,  is  at  least  highly 
probable. 

The  crimes  committed  against  Caspar 
Hauser,  as  far  as  the  information  hitherto 
given  of  them  extends,  are,  judging  accord- 
ing to  the  criminal  code  of  Bavaria,  the  fol- 
lowing : 


59 


1.  The  crime  of  illegal  imprisonment : 
(Strafgesetzbuch  Thl.  1  Art.  1 92-695)  which 
was  doubly  aggravated,  first,  in  respect  to  the 
duration  of  the  imprisonment,  which  appears 
to  have  lasted  from  his  earliest  infancy  to  the 
age  of  early  manhood ;  and  secondly,  in  re- 
spect to  its  kind,  inasmuch  as  it  was  con- 
nected with  particular  instances  of  ill-treat- 
ment. As  such,  we  must  consider,  not  only 
the  brutish  den  and  crippling  position  to  which 
he  was  confined,  and  his  coarse  diet,  which 
would  scarcely  have  satisfied  a  dog,  but  we 
must  incontestably  and  indeed  principally  re- 
gard as  such,  the  cruel  withholding  from  him, 
of  the  most  ordinary  donations,  which  nature 
with  a  liberal  hand  extends  even  to  the  most 
indigent; —the  depriving  him  of  all  the 
means  of  mental  development  and  culture, 
—  the  unnatural  detention  of  a  human  soul 
in  a  state  of  irrational  animality.  With  this 
crime  concurs,  objectively  — 

II.  The  crime  of  exposure ;  which,  ac- 
cording to  Stgb.  Thl.  l,art.  174,  may  be  com- 
mitted not  only  in  regard  to  infants,  but  also 
in  regard  to  grown  up  persons  whom  sickness 
or  other  infirmities  render  unable   to  help 


60 


themselves ;  among  which  class  of  persons, 
Caspar,  on  account  of  the  state  of  animal  stu- 
pidity and  of  inability  to  see  with  his  eyes 
open  or  even  to  walk  in  an  upright  position 
with  safety,  in  which  he  then  was,  must  un- 
doubtedly be  reckoned.  The  crime  of  Cas- 
par's exposition  is  also  aggravated  by  the  con- 
sideration of  the  danger  to  which  it  exposed 
his  life.  His  situation,  both  in  respect  to  his 
mind  and  his  body,  exposed  him  evidently 
to  the  danger,  either  of  falling  into  the  river 
Pzegnitz  which  was  very  near  to  the  place 
of  his  exposure,  or  of  being  run  down  by 
carriages  or  horses.  If  a  particular  crime,  af- 
fecting the  mental  powers,  or,  as  it  might  more 
properly  be  designated,  affecting  the  life  of  a 
human  soul,  were  known  to  the  criminal  code 
of  Bavaria ;  this  crime  would,  in  forming  a 
juridical  estimate  of  this  case,  when  com- 
pared with  the  crime  of  illegal  imprisonment, 
assume  the  place  of  the  highest  importance ; 
nay,  the  latter  crime  would  vanish  in  com- 
parison with  the  first,  as  infinitely  the  greater 
of  the  two,  and  it  would  be  absorbed  by  it.* 

*  The  conception  that  a  crime  may  be  absorbed  by 
he  commission  of  a  greater  crime,  is  familiar  to  Ger- 


61 


The  deprivation  of  external  liberty,  though 
in  itself  an  irreparable  injury,  bears  yet  no 
comparison  with  the  injury  done  to  this  un- 
happy being,  by  depriving  him  of  the  incalcu- 
lable sum  of  inestimable  benefits  which  can 
never  be  restored  to  him,  and  which,  by  the 
robbery  committed  upon  his  freedom,  and 
the  mode  and  manner  in  which  it  was  Com- 
mitted, were  either  entirely  withdrawn  from 
him,  or  destroyed,  and  his  means  of  enjoying 
them  miserably  crippled  for  the  remainder  of 
his  life.  Such  a  crime  does  not  merely  af- 
fect the  external  corporeal  appearance  of 
man,  but  the  inmost  essence  of  his  spiritual 
being;  it  is  the  iniquity  of  a  murderous  rob- 
bery perpetrated  upon  the  very  sanctuary  of 
his   rational  nature.     When  some  authors 

man  writers  on  criminal  jurisprudence.  If  a  person 
found  guilty  of  petty  larceny,  were  also  found  guilty 
of  murder,  it  is  Evident,  that  the  punishment  of  death 
incurred  by  the  second  crime,  would  render  it  im- 
possible to  inflict  the  punishment  of  imprisonment  in- 
curred by  the  first ;  which,  by  suspending  his  execu- 
tion, would  act  rather  as  a  reprieve  than  as  a  punish- 
ment. The  first  crime  would  therefore  remain  un- 
punished ;  its  punishment  being  as  it  were  absorbed 
by  the  punishment  of  the  second  crime. 
6 


62 


designate  such  a  crime  merely  by  the  predi- 
cate of  a  robbery  of  the  intellect,  (noochiria), 
as  Tittmann,*  and  make  that  which  consti- 
tutes the  essential  condition  of  its  existence, 
to  consist  in  actually  effecting  a  deprivation 
of  intellect,  or  in  causing  insanity ;  Caspar 
Hauser's  case  furnishes  an  instance,  which 
may  convince  them,  that  their  conception  of 
this  crime  is  far  too  limited,  and,  that  a  legis- 
lator who  should  desire  to  render  his  system 
more  complete,  by  the  exhibition  of  such  a 
genus  of  crimes,  ought  to  assume  a  more 
elevated  and  more  extensive  point  of  view. 
The  confinement  which  Caspar  suffered  in 
his  infancy,  produced  neither  idiocy  nor  in- 
sanity ;  for,  since  the  recovery  of  his  liberty, 
as  we  shall  see  more  particularly  hereafter, 
he  has  emerged  from  the  state  of  mere  ani- 
mality  ;  his  mind  has  been  developed,  and 
he  may  now,  with  certain  limitations,  be  con- 
sidered as  a  rational,  intelligent,  civilized  and 
moral  man.  Yet  no  one  can  help  perceiving, 
that  it  is   the  criminal  invasion   of  the  life  of 

**  Handbuch  der   Strafrechtswissenschaft.    Thl.  1, 
§179. 


63 


his  soul,  —  that  it  is  the  iniquity  perpetrated 
against  the  higher  principles  of  his  spiritual 
nature,  which  presents  the  most  revolting 
aspect  of  the  crime  committed  against  him. 
An  attempt,  by  artificial  contrivances  to  ex- 
clude a  man  from  nature  and  from  all  inter- 
course with  rational  beings,  to  change  the 
course  of  his  human  destiny,  and  to  with- 
draw from  him  all  the  nourishment  afforded 
by  those  spiritual  substances  which  nature  has 
appointed  for  food  to  the  human  mind,  that 
it  may  grow  and  flourish,  and  be  instructed 
and  developed  and  formed; — such  an  at- 
tempt must,  considered  even  quite  inde- 
pendently of  its  actual  consequences,  be 
considered  as,  in  itself,  a  highly  criminal 
invasion  of  man's  most  sacred  and  most 
peculiar  property,  —  of  the  freedom  and 
the  destiny  of  his  soul.  But  above  all,  the 
following  consideration  must  be  added  to 
all  the  rest.  Caspar,  having  been  sunk  dur- 
ing the  whole  earlier  part  of  his  life  in  animal 
sleep,  has  passed  through  this  extensive  and 
beautiful  part  of  it,  without  having  lived 
through  it.  His  existence  was,  during  all 
9      this  time,  similar  to  that  of  a  person  really 


64 


dead  :  in  having  slept  through  his  youthful 
years,  they  have  passed  by  him,  without  his 
having  had  them  in  his  possession  ;  because, 
he  was  rendered  unable  to  become  conscious 
of  their  existence.  This  chasm  which  crime 
has  torn  in  his  life,  cannot  any  more  be  filled 
up  'y  that  time,  in  which  he  omitted  to  live, 
can  never  be  brought  back,  that  it  may  yet 
be  lived  through  ;  that  juvenility,  which  fled 
while  his  soul  was  asleep,  can  never  be 
overtaken.  How  long  soever  he  may 
live,  he  must  forever  remain  a  man  with- 
out childhood  and  boyhood ;  a  monstrous 
being,  who,  contrary  to  the  usual  course 
of  nature,  only  began  to  live  in  the  mid- 
dle of  his  life.  Inasmuch  as  the  whole 
earlier  part  of  his  life  was  thus  taken  from 
him,  he  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  sub- 
ject of  a  partial  soul  murder.  The  deed 
done  to  Caspar,  differs  from  the  crime  that 
would  be  committed  by  one  who  should 
plunge  a  man  of  sound  intellect,  at  a  later 
period,  into  a  state  of  stupid  idiocy,  uncon- 
sciousness, or  irrationality,  only  in  respect 
to  the  different  epoch  of  life  at  which  the 
blow  of  soul  murder  w^s  struck :  in  one  in- 


//      v^       OF  THB  '- 

{(uiTiyEEsri 

Stance,  the  life  of  a  human  soul  was  mutila- 
ted at  its  commencement ;  in  the  other  it 
would  be  mutilated  at  its  close.  Besides, 
one  of  the  chief  momenta,  which  ought  not 
to  be  overlooked,  is  this :  since  childhood 
and  boyhood  are  given  and  destined  by  na- 
ture for  the  development  and  perfection  of 
our  mental  as  well  as  our  corporeal  life,  and 
since  nature  overleaps  nothing,  the  conse- 
quence of  Caspar's  having  come  into  the 
world  as  a  child  at  the  age  of  early  manhood 
is,  that  the  different  states  of  life  which  in 
other  men  are  formed  and  developed  gradu- 
ally, have  in  him,  both  now  and  forever  been 
as  it  were  displaced  and  improperly  joined 
together.  Having  commenced  the  life  of 
infancy  at  the  age  of  physical  maturity,  he 
will,  throughout  all  his  life,  remain,  as  regards 
his  mind,  less  forward  than  his  age,  and  as 
regards  his  age,  more  forward  than  his  mind. 
Mental  and  physical  life,  which  in  the  regular 
course  of  their  natural  development  go  hand 
in  hand,  have,  therefore,  in  respect  to  Caspar, 
been  as  it  were  separated,  and  placed  in  an 
unnatural  opposition  with  each  other.  Be- 
cause he  iUp  through  his  childhood,  that 
6* 


66 


childhood  could  not  be  lived  through  by  him 
at  its  proper  time ;  it  therefore  still  remains 
to  be  lived  through  by  him  ;  and,  it  conse- 
quently follows  him  into  his  later  years,  not 
as  a  smiling  genius,  but  as  an  affrighting 
spectre,  which  is  constantly  intruding  upon 
him  at  an  unseasonable  hour.  If,  besides 
all  this,  we  take  into  consideration  the  de- 
vastation which  the  fate  of  his  earlier  youth 
as  will  more  fully  be  seen  hereafter,  has 
occasioned  in  his  mind  ;  it  must  appear  evi- 
dent, from  the  instance  here  given,  that  the 
conception  of  a  robbery  committed  upon  the 
intellect,  does  by  no  means  exhaust  the  con- 
ception of  a  crime  committed  against  the  life 
of  the  soul. 

What  other  crimes  may  perhaps  yet  lie 
concealed  under  the  iniquity  committed 
against  Caspar  ?  What  were  the  ends  which 
Hauser's  secret  imprisonment  was  intended 
to  subserve?  —  To  answer  these  questions, 
would  lead  us  too  far  either  into  the  airy  re- 
gions of  conjecture  or  within  certain  confines 
which  will  not  admit  of  such  an  exposure  to 
the  light. 

This  crime,  which  in  the  history  of  human 


67 


atrocilies  is  still  almost  unheard  of,  presents 
to  the  learned  judge,  as  well  as  to  the  juri- 
dical physician^  yet  another  very  remarkable 
aspect.  Scrutinies  and  judgments  concern- 
ing certain  states  of  mind,  regard  commonly 
only  the  criminal  himself ;  inasmuch  as  their 
only  end,  is  to  ascertain,  whether  his  actions 
are  imputable  to  him  or  not.  But  here,  an 
instance  is  given  of  a  most  extraordinary,  and 
in  its  kind  exclusively  singular  case,  in  which 
the  matter  of  fact  which  is  to  prove  the  ex- 
istence of  a  crime,  lies  almost  entirely  con- 
cealed within  a  human  soul ;  where  it  can 
be  investigated  and  established,  only  by  means 
of  inquiries  purely  psychological,  and  found- 
ed upon  observations,  indicating  certain  states 
of  the  thinking  and  sentient  mind  of  the  per- 
son injured.  Even  of  the  history  of  this 
deed,  we  have  as  yet  no  other  knowledge, 
than  that  which  we  have  received  from  the 
narration  given  of  it  by  him  to  whom  it  was 
done :  yet,  the  truth  of  this  narration  is  war- 
ranted by  the  personality  of  the  narrator  him- 
self;  upon  whose  thinking  and  sentient  mind 
(Geist  und  gemiith)  —  as  we  shall  see  more 
particularly  hereafter  —  the   deed   itself,  is 


68 


written  in  visible  and  legible  characters.  No 
other  being  than  one  who  has  experienced 
and  suffered  what  Caspar  has,  can  be  what 
Caspar  is ;  and  he  whose  being  indicates 
what  Caspar's  does,  must  have  lived  in  a 
state  such  as  that  in  which  Caspar  says  that 
he  lived.  And  thus  we  see  an  instance,  in 
which  our  estimation  of  the  degree  of  credit 
which  we  are  to  give  to  the  narrator  of  an 
almost  incredible  occurrence,  is  made  to  rest 
almost  altogether  upon  psychological  grounds. 
But,  the  evidence  furnished  in  this  instance 
upon  such  grounds,  outweighs  that  of  any 
other  proof.  Witnesses  may  lie,  documents 
may  be  falsified ;  but  no  other  human  being, 
except  indeed  he  were  a  magician  armed 
with  a  certain  portion  of  omnipotence  and 
omniscience,  is  able  to  produce  a  lie  of  such 
a  nature,  that,  in  which  soever  aspect  you 
may  present  it  to  the  light,  it  shall  appear, 
in  all  of  them,  as  the  purest  and  most  uncon- 
taminated  truth,  as  the  very  personification 
of  truth  itself.  Whoever  should  doubt  Cas- 
par's narration,  must  doubt  Caspar's  person. 
But,  such  a  sceptic  might  with  equal  reason 
be  perniitted  to  doubt,  whether  a  person, 


69 


bleeding  from  a  hundred  wounds,  and  con- 
vulsed before  his  eyes  with  the  agonies  of 
death,  was  really  a  wounded  and  dying  man, 
or  was  only  acting  the  part  of  a  wounded  and 
dying  man.  Yet  we  must  not  anticipate  the 
reader's  judgment ;  my  exhibition  of  Caspar's 
person  has  only  just  commenced. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Caspar  had  been  already  considerably- 
more  than  a  month  at  Nuremberg,  when, 
among  the  latest  novelties  of  the  day,  I  heard 
of  this  foundling.  No  official  accounts  of 
this  occurrence  had  yet  been  received  by  the 
highest  authorities  of  the  province ;  it  was 
therefore  only  as  a  private  individual,  and 
from  a  general  regard  to  the  interests  of  hu- 
manity and  of  science,  that  I  went  to  Nurem- 
berg on  the  11th  of  July,  1828,  in  order  to 
examine  this  most  extraordinary  and  singular 
phenomenon.  Caspar's  abode  was  at  that 
time  still  in  the  Luginsland  at  the  Vestner 
gate,  where  every  body  was  admitted  who 
desired  to  see  him.  In  fact,  from  morning 
to  night,  Caspar  attracted  scarcely  fewer 
visitors  than  the  kangaroo,  or  the  tame 
hyena  in  the  celebrated  menagerie  of  M.  von 
Aken.     I  therefore  also  proceeded  thither, 


71 


in  company  with  Col.  von  D, two  ladies 

and  two  children ;  and  we  fortunately  arrived 
there  at  an  hour  when  no  other  visitors  hap- 
pened to  be  present.  Caspar's  abode  was  in 
a  small  but  cleanly  and  light  room,  the  win- 
dows of  which  opened  upon  an  Extensive  and 
pleasant  prospect.  We  found  him  with  his 
feet  bare,  clothed,  besides  his  shirt,  only  with 
a  pair  of  old  trousers.  The  walls  of  his  cham- 
ber had  been  decorated  by  Caspar  as  high 
as  he  could  reach,  with  sheets  of  colored  pic- 
tures. He  stuck  them  to  the  wall,  every 
morning  anew,  with  his  saliva,  which  was, 
at  that  time,  as  tough  as  glue  ;*  and,  as  soon 
as  it  became  twilight,  he  took  them  down 
again,  and  laid  them  together  by  his  side. 
In  a  corner  of  the  fixed  bench  which  extend- 
ed around  the  room  was  his  bed,  which  con- 
sisted of  a  bag  of  straw,  with  a  pillow  and 
blanket.  The  whole  of  the  remaining  part 
of  the  bench  was  thickly  covered  with  a  va- 
riety of  playthings^  with  hundreds  of  leaden 

*  The  saliva  was  so  very  gluey,  that  in  taking  these 
sheets  down  parts  of  them  sometimes  adhered  to  the 
wall  and  sometimes  parts  of  the  plastering  of  the  wall 
adhered  to  the  paper. 


72 


soldiers,  wooden  dogs,  horses,  and  other  toyy, 
such  as  are  commonly  manufactured  at  Nu- 
remberg. They  had  already  ceased  to 
occupy  much  of  his  attention  during  the  day ; 
yet  he  was  at  no  little  trouble  to  gather  care- 
fully together  all  these  trifles  and  all  their 
trifling  appurtenances,  every  evening ;  to 
unpack  them,  as  soon  as  he  awoke,  and  to 
place  them  in  a  certain  order,  in  rows  along- 
side of  each  other.  The  benevolent  feelings 
of  the  kind  inhabitants  of  Nuremberg  had 
also  induced  them  to  present  him  with  vari- 
ous articles  of  wearing  apparel,  which  he  kept 
under  his  pillow,  and  displayed  to  us  with  a 
childish  pleasure  not  unmingled  with  some 
little  vanity.  Upon  the  bench  there  lay, 
mingled  with  these  playthings,  several  pieces 
of  money,  to  which,  however,  he  paid  no 
attention.  From  these,  I  took  a  soiled  crown 
piece,  and  a  quite  new  piece  of  twentyfour 
kreutzers  *  in  my  hand  and  asked  him, 
which  of  these  be  liked  best  ?   He  chose  the 

*  A  crown  piece,  is  about  the  size  of  a  Spanish  dol- 
lar, and  a  piece  of  twentyfour  kreutzers  about  the  size 
of  a  (quarter  of  a  dollar. 


73 


small  shining  one ;  he  said  the  larger  one  was 
ugly,  and  he  regarded  it  with  a  look  ex- 
pressive of  aversion.  When  I  endeavored 
to  make  him  understand,  that  the  larger  piece 
was  nevertheless  the  more  valuable  of  the 
two,  and  that  he  could  get  more  pretty  things 
for  it  than  for  the  smaller  one,  he  listened 
indeed  attentively,  and  assumed  for  some- 
time a  thoughtful  stare;  but  at  length  he 
told  me,  that  he  did  not  know  what  I  meant. 
When  we  entered  into  his  apartment,  he 
showed  nothing  like  shyness  or  timidity ;  on 
the  contrary,  he  met  us  with  confidence  and 
seemed  to  be  rejoiced  at  our  visit.  He  first 
of  all  noticed  the  Colonel's  bright  uniform, 
and  he  could  not  cease  to  admire  his  helmet, 
which  glittered  with  gold  ;  then  the  colored 
dresses  of  the  ladies  attracted  his  attention  ; 
as  for  myself,  being  dressed  in  a  modest 
black  frock  coat,  I  was  at  first  scarcely  hon- 
ored with  a  single  glance.  Each  of  us 
placed  himself  separately  before  him  and 
mentioned  to  him  his  name  and  tide.  When- 
ever any  person  was  thus  introduced,  Caspar 
went  up  very  close  to  him,  regarded  him 
with  a  sharp  staring  look,  noticed  every  par- 
7 


74 


ticular  part  of  his  face,  as  his  forehead,  eyes, 
nose,  mouth,  chin,  &.c,  successively,  with  a 
penetrating  rapid  glance,  and  as  I  could  dis- 
tinctly perceive,  at  the  very  last,  he  collect- 
ed all  the  different  parts  of  the  countenance 
vi^hich  at  first  he  had  gathered  separately  and 
piece  by  piece,  into  one  whole.  He  then 
repeated  the  name  of  the  person,  as  it  had 
been  mentioned  to  him.  And  now,  he  knew 
the  person  ;  and,  as  experience  afterwards 
proved,  he  knew  him  forever.  He  averted 
his  eyes,  as  much  as  possible,  from  every 
glare  of  light ;  and  he  most  carefully  avoid- 
led  the  rays  of  the  sun  which  entered  direct- 
ly through  the  window.  When  such  a  ray 
accidentally  struck  his  eye,  he  winked  very 
much,  wrinkled  his  forehead,  and  evidently 
showed  that  he  was  in  pain.  His  eyes  were 
also  much  inflamed,  and  he  betrayed  in  every 
respect  the  greatest  sensibility  of  the  effects 
of  light. 

Although  his  face  became  afterwards  per- 
fectly regular,  yet,  at  that  time,  a  striking 
difference  was  perceptible  between  the  left 
and  the  right  side  of  it.  The  first  was  per- 
ceptibly drawn  awry  and  distorted;  and  con- 
vulsive spasms  frequently  passed  over  it  like 


75 


flashes  of  lightning.  By  these  spasms  the 
whole  left  side  of  his  body,  and  particularly 
his  arm  and  hand,  were  visibly  affected. 

If  anything  was  shown  him  which  excited 
his  curiosity,  if  any  word  was  spoken  which 
struck  his  attention  or  was  unintelligible  to 
him,  these  spasms  immediately  made  their 
appearance  ;  and  they  were  generally  suc- 
ceeded by  a  kind  of  nervous  rigidity.  He 
then  stood  motionless  ;  not  a  muscle  of  his 
face  moved,  his  eyes  remained  wide  open 
without  winking,  and  assumed  a  lifeless 
stare  ;  he  appeared  like  a  statue,  to  be  un- 
able to  see,  to  hear,  or  to  be  excited  to  any 
living  movement  by  external  impressions. 
This  state  was  observable  whenever  he  was 
meditating  upon  anything,  whenever  he  was 
seeking  the  conception  corresponding  to  any 
new  word,  or  the  word  corresponding  to  any 
new  thing,  or  whenever  he  endeavored  to 
connect  anything  that  was  unknown  to  him 
with  something  that  he  knew,  in  order  to  ren- 
der the  first  conceivable  to  him  by  means  of 
the  latter. 

His  annunciation  of  words  which  he  knew, 
was  plain  and  determinate,  without  hesitating 


76 


or  stammering.     But  coherent  speech  was 
not  yet  to  be  expected  from  him,  and  his 
language  was  as  indigent  as  his  stock  of  ideas. 
It  was  therefore  also  extremely  difficult  to 
become  intelligible  to  him.     Scarcely  had 
you  uttered  a  few  sentences  which  he  appear- 
ed to  understand,  when  you  found  that  some- 
thing was  mingled   with  them  which   was 
\  foreign  to  him ;  and,  if  he  wished  to  under- 
stand it,  his  spasms  immediately  returned. 
In  all  that  he  said,  the  conjunctions,  partici- 
ples and  adverbs  were  still  almost  entirely 
wanting ;    his   conjugation   embraced    little 
more  than  the  infinitive;   and  he  was  most 
of    all  deficient  in  respect  to   his   syntax, 
which  was  in  a  state  of  miserable  confusion. 
"  Caspar  very  well,"  instead  of  I  am  very 
well ;  '^  Caspar  shall  July  tell,"  instead  of,  I 
shall  tell  it  to  Julius  (the  son  of  the  prison 
keeper);  such  were  his  common  modes  of 
expressing  himself.     The  pronoun  I  occurred 
very  rarely ;  he  generally  spoke  of  himself 
in  the  third  person,  calling  himself  Caspar. 
In  the  same  manner,  he  also  spoke  to  others 
in  the  third  person  instead  of  the  second ;  for 
instance,  in  speaking  to  a  colonel  or  a  lady, 


77 


instead  of  saying  you,  he  would  say  colonel 
or  lady  such  a  one,  using  the  verb  in  the 
third  person.  Thus  also,  in  speaking  to  him, 
if  you  wished  him  immediately  to  understand 
who  you  meant,  you  must  not  say  you  to  him, 
but  Caspar.  The  same  word  was  often  used 
by  h  m  in  different  significations;  which  often 
occasioned  ludicrous  mistakes.  Many  words 
which  signify  only  a  particular  species,  would 
be  applied  by  him  to  the  whole  genus.  Thus, 
for  instance,  he  would  use  the  word  hill  or 
mountain,  as  if  it  applied  to  every  protube- 
rance or  elevation ;  and  in  consequence  there- 
of, he  once  called  a  corpulent  gentleman, 
whose  name  he  could  not  recollect,  "  the  man 
with  the  great  mountain,"  A  lady,  the  end 
of  whose  shawl  he  once  saw  dragging  on  the 
floor,  he  called,  **  the  lady  with  the  beautiful 
tail." 

It  may  be  supposed,  that  I  did  not  omit, 
by  various  questions,  to  obtain  from  him 
some  account  of  his  past  life.  But  all  that 
I  could  draw  from  him  was  so  confused  and 
so  undeterminate  a  jargon,  that,  being  yet 
unaccustomed  to  his  manner  of  speaking,  I 
could  mostly  only  guess  what  he  meant,  while 
7* 


78 


much  remained  that  was  utterly  unintelligible 
to  me. 

It  appeared  to  me  not  unimportant  to  make 
some  trial  of  his  taste  in  respect  to  different 
colors ;  he  showed  that,  also  in  this  particu- 
lar, he  was  of  the  same  mind  as  children 
and  so-called  savages.  The  red  color,  and 
indeed  the  most  glaring  red,  was  preferred 
by  him  to  every  other  ;  the  yellow  he  dis- 
liked, excepting  when  it  struck  the  sight  as 
shining  gold,  in  which  case  his  choice  waver- 
ed between  this  yellow  and  the  glaring  red  ; 
white  was  indifferent  to  him,  but  green  ap- 
peared to  him  almost  as  detestable  as  black. 
This  taste,  and  particularly  his  predilection 
for  the  red  color,  he  retained,  as  professor 
Daumer's  later  observations  prove,  long  after 
the  cultivation  of  his  mind  had  very  consid- 
erably progressed.  If  the  choice  had  been 
given  him,  he  would  have  clothed  himself 
and  all  for  whom  he  had  a  regard,  from  head 
to  foot  in  scarlet  or  purple.  The  appear- 
ance of  nature,  green  being  the  principal 
color  of  her  garment,  gave  him  no  delight. 
She  could  appear  beautiful  to  him,  only 
when   viewed  through  a  red  colored  glass. 


79 


With  professor  Daumer's  dwelling,  to  which 
shortly  after  my  visit  he  was  removed  from 
the  Lunginsland,  he  was  not  much  pleased ; 
because,  the  only  prospect  that  he  had  there, 
was  into  the  garden,  where  he  saw  nothing 
but  ugly  trees  and  plants,  as  he  called  them. 
On  the  contrary,  he  was  particularly  pleased 
with  the  dwelling  of  one  of  his  preceptor's 
friends,  which  was  situated  in  a  narrow  un- 
pleasant street,  because  opposite  to  it  and 
round  about  it  nothing  was  to  be  seen  but 
houses  beautifully  painted  red.  When  a  tree, 
full  of  red  apples  was  shown  him,  he  ex- 
pressed moch  satisfaction  at  seeing  it;  yet 
he  thought  that  it  would  have  been  still  much 
more  beautiful,  if  its  leaves  also  were  as  red 
as  the  fruit.  Seeing  a  person  once  drinking 
red  wine,  he  expressed  a  wish  that  he,  who 
drank  nothing  but  water,  could  also  drink 
things  which  appeared  so  beautiful. 

There  was  but  one  advantage  more  which 
he  wished  that  his  favorite  animals,  horses, 
possessed.  It  was,  that,  instead  of  being 
black,  bay,  or  white,  their  color  were  scar- 
let. The  curiosity,  the  thirst  for  knowledge, 
and  the  inflexible  perseverance  with  which 


-> 


80 


he  fixed  his  attention  to  anything  that  he  was 
determined  to  learn  or  comprehend,  surpass- 
ed everything  that  can  be  conceived  of  them  ; 
and  the  manner  in  which  they  were  express- 
ed, was  truly  affecting.  It  has  already  been 
stated,  that  he  no  longer  employed  himself 
in  the  day-time  with  his  playthings;  his 
hours  throughout  the  day  were  successively 
occupied  with  writing,  with  drawing,  or  with 
other  instructive  employments  in  which  pro- 
fessor Daumer  engaged  him.  Bitterly  did 
he  complain  to  us,  that  the  great  number  of 
people  who  visited  him  left  him  no  time  to 
learn  anything.  It  was  very  affecting  to  hear 
his  often  repeated  lamentation  that  the  peo- 
ple in  the  world  knew  so  much,  and  that 
there  were  so  very  many  things  which  he 
had  not  yet  learnt.  Next  to  writing,  draw- 
ing was  his  favorite  occupation,  for  which 
he  evinced  a  great  capacity  joined  with 
equal  perseverance.  For  several  days  past, 
he  had  undertaken  the  task  of  copying  a 
lithographical  print  of  the  burghermaster  Bin- 
der. A  large  packet  of  quarter  sheets  had 
already  been  filled  with  the  copies  which  he 
had  drawn ;  they  were  arranged  in  a  long 


81 


series,  in  the  order  in  which  they  had  been 
produced.  I  examined  each  of  them  sepa- 
rately :  the  first  attempts  resembled  exacdy 
the  pictures  drawn  by  little  children,  who 
imagine  that  they  have  drawn  a  face,  when 
they  have  scratched  upon  the  paper,  some- 
thing meant  to  represent  an  oval  figure  with 
a  few  long  and  cross  strokes.  Yet,  in  al- 
most every  one  of  the  succeeding  attempts, 
some  improvements  were  distinctly  visible  ; 
so  that  these  lines  began  more  and  more  to 
resemble  a  human  countenance,  and  finally 
represented  the  original,  though  still  in  a 
crude  and  imperfect  manner,  yet  so  that  their 
resemblance  to  it  might  be  recognised.  I 
expressed  my  approbation  of  some  of  his  last 
attempts;  but  he  showed  that  he  was  not 
satisfied,  and  insinuated  that  he  should  be 
obliged  to  draw  the  picture  a  great  many 
times,  before  it  would  be  drawn  as  it  ought 
to  be,  and  then  he  would  make  it  a  present 
to  the  burghermaster. 

With  his  life  in  the  world,  he  appeared 
to  be  by  no  means  satisfied ;  he  longed  to  go 
back  to  the  man  with  whom  he  had  always 
been.     At  home,  (in  his  hole,)  he  said,  he 


83 


had  never  suffered  so  much  from  headache, 
and  had  never  been  so  much  teazed  as  since 
he  was  in  the  world.  By  this,  be  alluded  to 
the  unpleasant  and  painful  sensations  which 
were  occasioned  by  the  many  new  impres- 
sions to  which  he  was  totally  unaccustomed, 
and  by  a  great  variety  of  smells  which  were 
disagreeable  to  him,  he ;  as  well  as  to  the 
numerous  visits  of  those  who  came  to  see 
him  from  curiosity,  to  their  incessant  ques- 
tioning of  him,  and  to  some  of  their  inconsid- 
erate and  not  very  humane  experiments. 
He  had  therefore  no  fault  to  find  with  the 
man  with  whom  he  had  always  been,  except 
that  he  had  not  yet  come  to  take  him  back 
again,  and  that  he  had  never  shown  him  or 
told  him  anything  of  so  many  beautiful  things, 
which  are  in  the  world.  He  is  willing  to  re- 
main in  Nuremberg,  until  he  has  learnt  what 
the  burghermaster  and  the  professor  (Dau- 
mer)  know ;  but  then,  the  burghernrj aster 
must  take  him  home  ;  and  then  he  will  show 
the  man  what  he  has  learnt  in  the  meantime. 
When  I  expressed  my  surprise,  that  he 
should  wish  to  return  to  that  abominable  bad 
man;  he  replied, with  mild  indignation,  " man 


83 


not  bad,  man  me  no  bad  done."  Of  his 
astonishing  memory,  which  is  as  quick  as  it 
is  tenacious,  he  gave  us  the  most  striking 
proofs.  In  noticing  any  of  the  numerous 
things  whether  small  or  great  which  were  in 
his  possession,  he  was  able  to  mention  the 
name  and  the  title  of  the  person  who  had 
given  it  to  him  ;  and  if  several  persons  were 
to  be  mentioned,  whose  surnames  were  alike, 
he  distinguished  them  accurately,  by  their 
christian  names  or  by  other  marks  of  distinc- 
tion. About  an  hour  after  we  had  seen  him, 
we  met  him  again  in  the  street,  it  being  about 
the  time  when  he  was  conducted  to  the 
burghermaster's.  We  addressed  him ;  and 
when  we  asked  him  whether  he  could  recol- 
lect our  names?  he  mentioned,  without  the 
least  hesitation,  the  full  name  of  every  one 
of  the  company,  together  with  all  our  titles, 
which  must  nevertheless  have  appeared  to 
him  as  unintelligible  nonsense.  His  physi- 
cian, Dr  Osterhausen  observed,  on  a  different 
occasion,  that  when  a  nosegay  had  been  given 
him  and  he  had  been  told  the  names  of  all 
the  different  flowers  of  which  it  was  com- 
posed, he  recognised,  several  days  afterwards, 


'   34 

every  one  of  these  flowers ;  and  he  was  able 
to  tell  the  name  of  each  of  them.  But  the 
strength  of  his  memory  decreased  afterwards, 
precisely  in  proportion  as  it  was  enriched, 
and  as  the  labor  of  his  understanding  was 
increased.  His  obedience  to  all  those  per- 
sons who  had  acquired  paternal  authority  over 
him,  particularly  to  the  burghermaster,  pro- 
fessor Daumer,  and  the  prison-keeper  Hiltel, 
was  unconditional  and  boundless.  That  the 
burghermaster  or  the  professor  had  said  so, 
was  to  him  a  reason  for  doing  or  omitting  to 
do  anything,  which  was  final  and  totally  ex- 
clusive of  all  further  questions  and  considera- 
tions. When  once  I  asked  him,  why  he  thought 
himself  obliged  always  to  yield  such  punctual 
obedience  ?  he  replied  :  "  the  man  with 
whom  I  always  was,  taught  me  that  1  must 
do  as  I  am  bidden."  Yet  in  his  opinion,  this 
submission  to  the  authority  of  others,  refer- 
ed  only  to  what  he  was  to  do  or  not  to  do, 
and  it  had  no  connexion  whatever  with  his 
knowing,  believing,  and  opining.  Before 
he  could  acknowledge  anything  to  be  certain 
and  true,  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  be 
convinced ;  and,  indeed,  that  he  should  be 


85 


convinced  either  by  the  intuition  of  his  senses, 
or  by  some  reasoning  adapted  to  his  powers 
of  comprehension  and  to  the  scanty  acquire- 
ments of  his  almost  vacant  mind,  as  to  ap- 
pear to  him  to  be  striking.  Whenever  it  was 
impossible  to  reach  his  understanding  by  any 
of  these  ways,  he  did  not  indeed  contradict 
the  assertion  made,  but  he  would  leave  the 
matter  undecided,  until,  as  he  used  to  say, 
he  had  learned  more.  I  spoke  to  him  among 
other  things  of  the  impending  winter,  and  I 
told  him  that  the  roofs  of  the  houses  and 
the  streets  of  the  city  would  then  be  all 
white,  —  as  wliite  as  the  walls  of  his  cham- 
ber. He  said,  that  this  would  be  very  pret- 
ty ;  but  he  plainly  insinuated  that  he  should 
not  believe  it  before  he  had  seen  it.  The 
next  winter,  when  the  first  snow  fell,  he  ex- 
pressed great  joy  that  the  streets,  the  roofs 
and  the  trees  had  now  been  so  well  painted ; 
and  he  went  quickly  down  into  the  yard,  to 
fetch  some  of  the  white  paint ;  but  he  soon 
ran  to  his  preceptor  with  all  his  fingers  stretch- 
ed out,  crying,  and  blubbering,  and  bawling 
out  "  that  the  white  paint  had  bit  his  hand." 
A  most  surprising  and  inexplicable  pro- 
8 


86 


perty  of  this  young  man,  was  his  love  of 
order  and  cleanliness,  which  he  even  carried 
to  the  extreme  of  pedantry.  Of  the  many 
hundreds  of  trifles  of  which  his  little  house- 
hold consisted,  each  had  its  appropriate 
place,  was  properly  packed,  carefully  folded, 
symmetrically  arranged,  &£c.  Uncleanliness, 
or  whatever  he  considered  as  such,  whether 
in  his  own  person  or  in  others,  was  an  abom- 
ination to  him.  He  observed  almost  every 
grain  of  dust  upon  our  clothes ;  and  when 
he  once  saw  a  few  grains  of  snufF  on  my 
frill,  he  showed  them  to  me,  briskly  indicat- 
ing that  he  wished  me  to  wipe  those  nasty 
things  away. 

The  most  remarkable  fact  of  experience 
in  respect  to  him  which  I  learnt,  but  which 
was  not  fully  explained  to  me  until  several 
years  afterwards,  was  the  result  of  the  follow- 
ing experiment,  which  was  suggested  to  me 
by  a  very  obvious  association  of  ideas,  lead- 
ing me  to  compare  what  was  observable  in 
Caspar,  who  had  not  come  forth  from  his 
dark  dungeon  to  the  light  of  day  before  the 
age  of  early  manhood,  wiih  the  well  known 
account,  given  by  Cheselden,  of  a  young 


87 


man,  who  had  become  blind  but  a  few  days 
after  his  birth,  and  who,  in  consequence  of 
a  successful  operation,  had  been  restored  to 
sight,  nearly  at  the  same  age. 

I  directed  Caspar  to  look  out  of  the  win- 
dow, pointing  to  the  wide  and  extensive  pros- 
pect of  a  beautiful  landscape,  that  presented 
itself  to  us  in  all  the  glory  of  summer ;  and 
I  asked  him,  whether  what  he  saw  was  not 
very  beautiful.  He  obeyed  ;  but  he  instant- 
ly drew  back  with  visible  horror,  exclaiming 
"  ugly!  ugly!  "  and  then,  pointing  to  the  white 
wall  of  his  chamber,  he  said,  "  there  not 
ugly."  To  my  question,  why  it  was  ugly  ? 
No  other  reply  was  made,  than  ugly  !  ugly  ! 
and  thus,  nothing  remained  for  the  present 
for  me  to  do,  but  to  take  care  to  preserve 
this  circumstance  in  my  memory,  and  to  ex- 
pect its  explanation  from  the  time,  when  Cas- 
par should  be  better  able  to  express  what  he 
meant  to  say.  That  his  turning  away  from 
the  prospect  pointed  at^  could  not  be  suffi- 
ciently accounted  for,  by  the  painful  impres- 
sion made  upon  his  optic  nerve  by  the  light, 
appeared  to  me  to  be  evident.  For  his 
countenance  at  this  time  did  not  so  much 


88 


express  pain  as  horror  and  dismay.  Besides, 
he  stood  at  some  distance  from  the  window, 
by  the  side  of  it,  so  that  akhoiigh  he  could 
see  the  prospect  pointed  at,  yet,  in  looking  at 
it  he  could  not  be  exposed  to  the  impression 
made  by  rays  of  light  entering  directly  into 
the  window.  When  Caspar  afterwards  in 
1831,  spent  some  weeks  with  me  at  my  own 
house,  where  I  had  continual  opportunities 
of  observing  him  accurately,  and  of  com- 
pleting and  correcting  the  results  of  former 
observations,  I  took  an  opportunity  of  con- 
versing with  him  respecting  this  occurrence. 
I  asked  him  whether  he  remembered  my 
visit  to  him  at  the  tower ;  and  whether  he 
could  particularly  recollect  the  circumstance, 
that  I  had  asked  him  how  he  liked  the 
prospect  from  his  window,  and  that  he  had 
turned  from  it  with  horror,  and  had  repeat- 
edly exclaimed  ugly  !  ugly  !  and  I  then  asked 
him,  why  he  had  done  so  ?  and  what  had 
then  . appeared  to  him.  To  which  he  re- 
plied ;  "  yes,  indeed,  what  I  then  saw  was 
very  ugly.  For  when  I  looked  at  the  window 
it  always  appeared  to  me,  as  if  a  window 
shutter  had  been  placed  close  before  my  eyes 


89 


upon  which  a  wall  painter  had  spattered  the 
contents  of  his  different  brushes,  filled  with 
white,  blue,  green,  yellow,  and  red  paint,  all 
mingled  together.  Single  things  as  I  now 
see  things,  1  could  not  at  that  time  recog- 
nise and  distinguish  from  each  other.  This 
was  shocking  to  look  at;  and  besides,  it 
made  me  feel  anxious  and  uneasy ;  because 
it  appeared  to  me,  as  if  my  window  had  been 
closed  up  with  this  parti-colored  shutter,  in 
order  to  prevent  me  from  looking  out  into 
the  open  air.  That,  what  I  then  saw,  were 
fields,  hills,  and  houses ;  that  many  things 
which  at  that  time  appeared  to  me  much 
larger  were  in  fact  much  smaller,  while  many 
other  things  that  appeared  smaller,  were  in 
reality  larger  than  other  things,  is  a  fact;  of 
which  I  was  afterwards  convinced  by  the 
experience  gained  during  my  walks ;  at  length 
I  no  longer  saw  anything  more  of  the  shutter." 
To  other  questions,  he  replied,  "  that,  in  the 
beginning,  he  could  not  distinguish  between 
what  was  really  round  or  triangular,  and 
what  was  only  painted  as  round  or  triangular. 
The  men  and  horses  represented  on  sheets 
of  pictures,  appeared  to  him  precisely  as  the 
8* 


90 


men  and  horses  that  were  carved  in  wood  ; 
the  first,  as  round  as  the  latter,  or  these,  as 
flat  as  those.  But  he  said,  ihat  in  the  pack- 
ing and  unpacking  of  his  things,  he  had  soon 
felt  a  difference  ;  and  that,  afterwards,  it  had 
seldom  happened  to  him,  to  mistake  the  one 
for  the  other. 

Here  then  we  behold,  in  Caspar,  a  living 
instance  of  Cheselden's  blind  man  who  had 
recovered  his  sight.  Let  us  hear  what  Vol- 
taire,'^ or  Diderot,f  who  in  this  instance 
may  pass  for  the  same  person,  has  said  of 
this  blind  person  J  "  The  young  man  whose 
cataracts  were  couched  by  this  skilful  sur- 
geon, did  not  for  a  long  time  distinguish  either 
magnitudes,  distances,  or  even  figures  from 
each  other.  An  object  of  an  inch  in  size, 
which,  when  placed  before  his  eyes,  concealed 
a  house  from  his  view,  appeared  to  him  as 

*  In  his  Philosophie  de  Newton  (Oeuvres  completes 
Gotha,  1786,  T.  xxxi.  p.  118.) 

t  Lettre  sur  les  arengles  k  Tusage  de  ceux  qui  voyent 
(Londres  149)  p.  1759  —  164.  Diderot  has  copied 
Voltaire's  account  verbatim. 

t  The  author  was  unable  to  obtain  Cheselden's  ori- 
ginal work. 


91 


large  as  that  house.  All  objects  were  pre- 
sent to  his  eye,  and  appeared  to  him  to  be 
applied  to  that  organ,  as  objects  of  touch  are 
applied  to  the  skin.  He  could  not  distin- 
guish, by  his  sight,  what  by  the  aid  of  his 
hands  he  had  judged  to  be  round  from  what 
he  had  judged  to  be  angular  ;  nor  could  he 
by  means  of  his  eyes  discern,  whether  what 
by  his  feelings  he  had  perceived  to  be  above 
or  below,  was  in  fact  above  or  below.  He 
attained,  though  not  without  some  difficulty, 
to  a  perception,  that  his  house  was  larger 
than  his  chamber  ;  but  he  could  never  con- 
ceive, how  the  eye  could  give  him  this  infor- 
mation. Many  repeated  facts  of  experience, 
were  required  in  order  to  satisfy  him  that 
paintings  represented  solid  bodies;  and  when, 
by  dint  of  looking  at  pictures,  he  was  con- 
vinced that  what  he  saw  before  him  were  not 
merely  surfaces,  he  felt  them  with  his  hands, 
and  was  then  much  surprised,  to  find  only  a 
plain  surface  without  any  projection.  He 
then  would  ask  which  of  his  senses  deceived 
him,  his  touch  or  his  sight  ?  Painting  has, 
however,  sometimes  produced  the  same  effect 
upon  savages,  the  first  time  that  they  saw  it : 


92 


th  ey  took  painted  figures  for  living  men,  in- 
terrogated them,  and  were  quite  astonished 
to  find  that  they  received  no  answer; — an 
error,  which  in  them  could  certainly  not  have 
proceeded  from  their  being  unaccustomed  to 
the  sight  of  visible  objects." 

To  little  children  also,  during  the  first 
weeks  or  months  after  their  birth,  everything 
appears  equally  near.  They  will  extend  their 
little  hands  to  reach  the  glittering  ball  of  a 
distant  steeple,  and  they  know  neither  how 
to  distinguish  things  that  are  actually  great  or 
small,  from  things  that  are  apparently  so,  nor 
how  to  distinguish  real,  from  painted  objects. 
For  in  respect  to  objects  both  of  the  sight  and 
of  the  touch,  it  is  necessary,  that  both  of  these 
senses  should  mutually  assist  each  other,  in 
order  to  enable  us  to  recognise  them  for 
what  they  really  are.  The  explanation  of 
this  fact  of  experience  depends  upon  the 
elementary  law  of  all  vision  ;  regarding  which 
the  great  English  philosopher  Berkley  has  ex- 
pressed himself  in  the  following  manner :  "  It 
is,  I  think,  agreed  by  all,  that  distance  of  it- 
self, and  immediately,  cannot  be  seen.  For 
distance  being  a  line,  directed  end-wise  to  the 


93 


eye,  it  projects  only  one  point  at  the  bottom 
of  the  eye.  Which  point  remains  invariably 
the  same,  whether  the  distance  be  longer  or 
shorter.  —  I  find  it  also  acknowledged  that 
the  estimate  we  make  of  the  distance  of  ob- 
jects considerably  remote,  is  rather  an  act  of 
judgment  grounded  on  experience,  than  of 
sense.  For  example:  when  I  perceive  a 
great  number  of  intermediate  objects,  such 
as  houses,  fields,  rivers,  and  the  like,  which 
I  have  experienced  to  take  up  a  considerable 
space ;  I  thence  form  a  judgment  or  con- 
clusion, that  the  object  I  see  beyond  them  is 
at  a  great  distance.  Again,  when  an  object 
appears  faint  and  small,  which  at  a  near  dis- 
tance I  have  experienced  to  make  a  vigorous 
and  large  appearance,  I  instantly  conclude 
that  it  is  far  oflT.  And  this,  it  is  evident,  is 
the  result  of  experience;  without  which, 
from  the  faintness  and  littleness,  I  should  not 
have  inferred  anything  concerning  the  dis- 
tance of  objects. 

The  application  of  this  law  of  optics,  and 
of  those  facts,  in  explaining  the  delusion  of 
the  senses  which  Caspar  experienced  is  ob- 
vious.    As  Caspar  had  never  before  been 


94 


accustomed  to  walk  further,  than  from  the 
tower  to  the  biirghermaster's  house,  or  per- 
haps through  one  or  two  streets  more  5  as, 
in  consequence  of  the  irritability  of  his  eyes, 
and  of  his  fear  of  falling,  he  always  looked 
down  at  his  feet,  and  as,  on  account  of  his 
sensibility  of  the  light,  he  always  avoided 
looking  out  into  the  vast  ocean  of  light  around 
him;  he  had,  for  a  length  of  time,  no  oppor- 
tunities of  gaining  experience  concerning  the 
perspective  and  the  distances  of  visible  ob- 
jects. All  the  numerous  things  in  the  coun- 
try at  which  he  was  looking,  which,  together 
with  a  comparatively  s  mall  portion  of  the  blue 
iky  filled  the  aperture  between  the  upper 
and  lower  window  frame,  must,  therefore, 
have  presented  themselves  to  him  as  a  great 
variety  of  formless  and  equally  distant  phe- 
nomena, arranged  the  one  above  the  other. 
Hence  the  whole  must  have  been  viewed  by 
him,  as  an  upright  table,  upon  which  nume- 
rous and  differently  colored  objects  of  dif- 
ferent sizes,  had  assumed  the  appearance  of 
shapeless  and  parti-colored  blots. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Though  Caspar  Hauser's  almost  constant 
and  uninterupted  intercourse  with  the  nu- 
merous individuals,  who  thronged  to  him  at 
all  hours  of  the  day,  was  unquestionably  at- 
tended with  the  advantage  of  making  him 
acquainted,  in  a  short  and  easy  manner,  with 
a  great  variety  of  things  and  words,  and  of 
thus  enabling  him  to  make  a  very  rapid  pro- 
gress in  learning  how  to  speak  with  others 
and  to  understand  them ;  yet  it  is  equally 
certain,  that  the  heterogeneous  influence  of 
mingled  masses  of  individuals  to  which  he 
was  thus  constantly  exposed,  was  by  no 
means  well  adapted  to  promote  an  orderly 
development  of  this  neglected  youth,  in  agree- 
ment with  the  regular  course  of  nature.  It 
is  true,  that  perhaps  not  an  hour  of  the  day 
was  permitted  to  pass,  which  did  not  in  some 
way  or  other  furnish  new  materials  for  the 
formation  of  his  mind.     But,  it  was  impossi- 


96 


ble  for  the  materials  thus  collected  to  assume 
the  form  and  figure  even  of  the  most  incon- 
siderable organic  whole.  All  was  mingled 
together  in  one,  disorderly,  scattered,  and 
parti-colored  mass,  of  hundreds  and  thousands 
of  partial  representations  and  fragments  of 
thought,  huddled  together,  above  and  be- 
low, and  by  the  sides  of  each  other,  without 
any  apparent  connexion  or  design.  If  thus 
the  vacant  tablets  of  his  mind  were  soon 
enough  superscribed,  they  were,  at  the 
same  time,  but  too  soon  filled  and  disfigured 
with  things,  which  in  part  at  least  were  worth- 
less and  prejudicial.  The  unaccustomed  im- 
pressions of  the  light  and  of  the  free  air ;  the 
strange  and  often  painful  minglings  of  di- 
verse excitatives  which  continually  flowed 
in  upon  his  senses  ;  the  effort  to  which  his 
mind  was  constantly  stimulated  by  his  thirst 
of  knowledge,  laboring  as  it  were  to  go  be- 
yond itself,  to  fasten  upon,  to  devour  and  to 
absorb  into  itself  whatsoever  was  new  to  him, 
—  but  all  was  new  to  him  —  all  this  was 
more  than  his  feeble  body,  and  his  delicate, 
yet  constantly  excited  and  even  over  excited 
nerves  could  bear.     From  my  first  visit  to 


^7 


Caspar  on  the  11th  of  July,  I  brought  with 
me  the  fullest  conviction,  which  in  its  proper 
place  I  also  endeavored  to  impress  upon  the 
minds  of  others,  that  Caspar  Hauser  must 
needs  either  die  of  a  nervous  fever,  or  be 
visited  with  some  attack  of  insanity  or  idiocy, 
if  some  change  was  not  speedily  made  in  his 
situation.  In  a  few  days  my  apprehensions 
were  partly  justified  by  what  actually  occur- 
red. Caspar  Hauser  became  sick:  at  least 
he  became  so  unwell,  that  a  dangerous  illness 
was  feared.  The  official  statement  of  his 
physician,  Dr  Oslerhausen's  opinion,  which 
on  this  occasion  was  sent  by  him  to  the  ma- 
gistracy of  the  city,  was  to  the  following 
effect.  ^ 

"  The  multifarious  impressions  which  all  at 
once  rushed  upon  Caspar  Hauser  after  he 
had  for  years  been  buried  alive  in  a  dungeon, 
where  he  lived  secluded  from  all  mankind 
and  left,  to  himself  alone,  and  which  did  not 
operate  upon  him  singly  and  successively,  but 
in  a  mass  and  altogether ;  the  heteroge- 
neous impressions  made  upon  him  by  the  free 
air,  by  the  light,  and  by  the  objects  which 
surrounded  him,  which  all  of  them  were  new 
9 


98 


to  him ;  the  awakening  of  his  mental  indi- 
viduality, his  desire  of  learning  and  of  know- 
ing, as  well  as  the  change  that  was  made  in 
his  manner  of  living,  &;c ;  the  operation  of 
all  these  causes,  could  not  but  produce  effects 
which  would  powerfully  shake,  and  finally 
injure  the  health  of  a  person,  possessing  so 
very  great  a  share  of  nervous  sensibility.  — 
When  I  saw  him  again,  I  found  him  totally 
changed  ^  he  was  melancholy,  very  much 
dejected  and  greatly  enfeebled.  There  ap- 
peared to  exist  a  morbid  elevation  of  his 
nervous  excitability.  The  muscles  of  his 
face  were  affected  with  frequent  spasms. 
His  hands  trembled  so  much,  that  he  was 
scarcely  able  to  hold  anything.  His  eyes  were 
inflamed,  they  could  not  bear  the  light,  and 
they  gave  him  considerable  pain,  when  he 
attempted  to  read,  or  to  look  at  any  object 
attentively.  His  hearing  was  so  very  sensi- 
tive, that  all  loud  speaking  caused  him  vio- 
lent pain  ;  so  that  he  could  no  longer  endure 
the  sound  of  music,  of  which  he  had  here- 
tofore been  so  passionately  fond.  He  lost 
his  appetite,  became  costive,  complained  of 
unpleasant  sensations  in   his  abdomen,  and 


99 


upon  the  whole,  he  felt  very  unwell.  —  I  felt 
very  uneasy  on  account  of  his  state  of  health, 
and  particularly  so,  partly  because  his  uncon- 
querable aversion  to  anything  but  bread  and 
water  renders  it  impossible  to  administer 
medicines  to  him,  and  partly,  because  it  is 
to  be  feared  that  even  the  most  inactive  rem- 
edies might  operate  too  powerfully  upon  him 
in  the  present  highly  excited  state  of  his 
nerves." 

On  the  18th  of  July,  Caspar  Hauser  was 
released  from  his  abode  in  the  tower,  and 
was  committed  to  the  domestic  care  and 
superintendence  of  Mr  Daumer,  a  professor 
of  a  gymnasium,  distinguished  equally,  for  the 
excellent  qualities  of  his  mind  and  of  his 
heart,  who  now  took  upon  himself  entirely 
the  care  of  his  education,  and  who  had  also 
hitherto  paid  a  fatherly  attention  to  his  in- 
struction, and  to  the  formation  of  his  mind. 
In  the  family  of  this  man,  consisting  of  the 
worthy  mother  and  sister  of  his  instructor,  he 
found  in  a  manner  a  compensation  for  the 
loss  of  those  beings,  whom  nature  had  given 
him,  and  of  whom  the  wickedness  of  man 
had  deprived  him. 


100 

We  may  form  some  conception  of  the 
multitude  of  persons  to  whose  curiosity  Cas- 
par Hauser  was  exposed,  from  the  circum- 
stance, that  the  magistracy  of  Nuremberg 
found  it  necessary,  as  soon  as  Caspar  had 
been  committed  to  the  care  of  Professor 
Daumer,  to  insert  the  following  notice  in  the 
public  journals ; 

"  The  homeless  Caspar  Hauser,  has,  in 
order  to  promote  the  development  of  the 
powers  of  his  mind  and  body,  been  commit- 
ted, by  the  magistracy  of  the  city  of  Nu- 
remberg to  the  care  of  a  particular  instruc- 
tor, who  is  well  qualified  to  undertake  that 
office.  That  both  of  them  may  be  freed 
from  any  interruption  in  the  pursuit  of  this 
object,  and  that  Caspar  Hauser  may  be  able  to 
enjoy  that  tranquillity,  which  in  every  respect 
he  so  much  needs,  his  instructor  has  been 
directed,  not  to  admit  of  any  more  visits  to 
Hauser  for  the  future. 

"  The  public  in  general,  are  therefore  here- 
by duly  informed  thereof;  so  that  all  may 
avoid  the  mortification  of  being  refused  ad- 
mittance to  him :  and  it  is  also  notified,  that 
pertinacious   importunity    in   insisting    upon 


101 


admittance  to  him,  will  if  necessary,  be 
resisted  with  the  assistance  of  the  police."* 
At  Professor  Daumer's  Caspar  Hauser  was 
for  the  first  time  furnished,  instead  of  the 
bag  of  straw  upon  which  he  had  lain  in  the 
tower,  with  a  proper  bed,  with  which  he 
seemed  to  be  exceedingly  pleased.  He 
would  often  say,  that  his  bed  was  the  only 
pleasant  thing  that  he  had  met  with  in  the 
world  ;  everything  else  was  very  bad  indeed. 
—  It  was  only  after  he  slept  in  a  bed,  that 
he  began  to  have  dreams.  Yet,  these  he  ^/^'^ 
did  not  at  first  recognise  as  dreams,  but  re- 
lated them  to  his  instructor,  when  he  awoke, 
as  real  occurrences.     It  was  only  at  a  later 

*  This  notice  nevertheless  did  not  entirely  produce 
the  desired  effect.  As  few  strangers  visit  Nuremberg 
without  going  to  see  the  grave  of  St  Sebaldus,  the 
paintings  on  glass  in  the  church  of  St  Lawrence,  &c, 
80  no  one  at  that  time,  thought  that  he  had  fully  seen 
the  curiosities  of  Nuremberg,  who  had  omitted  to 
see  the  mysterious  adopted  child  of  that  city  From 
the  time  of  Caspar's  arrvai  at  Nuremberg,  to  the 
present  moment,  many  hundreds  of  persons  of  almost 
all  European  nations,  of  every  rank, —  scholars,  artists, 
statesmen,  and  officers  of  every  description,  as  well 
as  noble  and  princely  personages,  —  have  seen  and 
spoken  with  him. 

9* 


102 

period  that  he  learned  to  perceive  the  differ- 
ence between  waking  and  dreaming.* 

One  of  the  most  difficult  undertakings 
was  to  accustom  him  to  th  e  use  of  ordinary- 
food,  and  this  could  be  accomplished  only  by 
slow  degrees,  with  much  trouble  and  great 
caution. f  The  first  that  he  was  willing  to 
take,  was  water  gruel ;  which  he  learned  to 
relish  daily  more  and  more,  and  on  this  ac- 
count he  imagined  that  it  was  every  day 
made  belter  and  better;  so  that  he  would 
ask,  what  was  the  reason  that  it  had  not  been 
made  so  good  at  first  ?  Also  all  kinds  of 
food  prepared  from  meal,  flour  and  pulse, 
and  whatever  else  bore  a  resemblance  to 
bread,  began  soon  to  agree  with  him.  At 
length,  he  was  gradually  accustomed  to  eat 
meat,  by  mixing  at  first  only  a  few  drops  of 

*  These  circumstances  should  not  be  left  unnoticed 
by  those  who  make  the  philosophy  of  the  human  mind 
their  study ;  as  they  afford  striking  illustrations  of 
the  peculiar  state  of  mind  in  which  Caspar  was  at 
that  time. 

t  Before  he  became  accustomed  to  warm  food,  he  felt 
a  constant  thirst :  and  he  drank  daily  from  ten  to 
twelve  quarts  of  water.  But  even  yet,  he  is  still  a 
mighty  water  drinker. 


gravy  with  his  gruel,  and  a  few  threads  of 
the  muscular  fibres  of  meat,  of  which  the 
juices  had  been  well  boiled  out,  with  his 
bread;  and  by  gradually  increasing  the 
quantity. 

In  the  notes  respecting  Caspar  Hauser, 
which  Professor  Daumer  has  collected,  he 
has  made  the  following  observations;  "After 
he  had  learned  regularly  to  eat  meat,  his 
mental  activity  was  diminished  ;  his  eyes 
lost  their  brilliancy  and  expression  ;  his  vivid 
propensity  to  constant  activity  was  diminish- 
ed ;  the  intense  application  of  his  mind  gave 
way  to  absence  and  indifference ;  and  the 
quickness  of  his  apprehension  was  also  con- 
siderably diminished.  Whether  this  was 
really  the  effect  of  his  feeding  on  meat,  or 
whether  this  bluntness  was  not  rather  the 
consequence  of  the  painful  excess  of  excite- 
ment which  preceded  it,  may  very  justly  be 
questioned.  We  may  however  conclude 
with  much  greater  certainty,  that  the  change 
of  his  diet,  which  was  made  by  accustoming 
him  to  warm  nourishment  and  to  some  ani- 
mal food,  must  have  had  a  very  perceptible 
efTect  upon  his  growth.     In  Professor  Dau- 


104 

mer's  house,  he  increased  more  than  two 
inches  in  height,  in  a  very  few  weeks. 

As  the  inflammation  of  his  eyes,  and  the 
constant  headache,  with  which  every  appli- 
cation of  his  eyesight  was  attended,  made  it 
impossible  for  him  to  read,  to  write,  or  to 
draw,  Mr  Daumer  employed  him  in  making 
pasteboard  work,  in  which  he  very  soon 
acquired  considerable  dexterity.  He  also 
taught  him  to  play  chess,  which  he  soon 
learned,  and  practised,  with  pleasure.  Be- 
sides this,  he  was  employed  in  easy  garden 
work,  and  made  acquainted  with  various  pro- 
ductions, phenomena,  and  powers  of  nature; 
so  that  not  a  single  day  passed  by,  which  did 
not  add  something  to  his  knowledge,  and 
make  him  acquainted  with  innumerable  new 
objects  of  surprise,  wonder,  and  admiration. 

It  required  no  litde  pains  and  much  pa- 
tience in  correcting  his  mistakes,  in  order  to 
teach  him  the  difference  between  things 
which  are,  and  such  as  are  not  organized  ; 
between  animate  and  inanimate  things  ;  and 
between  voluntary  motion,  and  motion  that 
is  communicated  from  without.  Many 
tilings  which  bore  the  form  of  men  or  ani- 


105 

mals,  though  cut  in  stone,  carved  in  wood, 
or  painted,  he  would  still  conceive  to  be  ani- 
mated, and  ascribe  to  them  such  qualities 
as  he  perceived  to  exist  in  animated  beings. 
It  appeared  strange  to  him,  that  horses, 
unicorns,  ostriches,  &;c,  which  were  hewn  or 
painted  upon  the  walls  of  houses  in  the  city, 
remained  always  stationary,  and  did  not  run 
away.  —  He  expressed  his  indignation  against 
a  statue  in  the  garden  belonging  to  the  house 
in  w^hich  he  lived,  because,  although  it  was 
so  dirty,  yet  it  did  not  wash  itself.  —  When 
for  the  first  time  he  saw  the  great  crucifix 
on  the  outside  of  the  church  of  St  Sebaldus, 
its  view  affected  him  with  horror  and  with 
pain :  and  he  earnestly  entreated,  that  the 
man  who  was  so  dreadfully  tormented,  might 
be  taken  down.  Nor  could  he,  for  a  long 
time,  be  pacified,  although  it  was  explained 
to  him,  that  it  was  not  any  real  man,  but 
only  an  image,  which  felt  nothing.  He 
conceived  every  motion  that  he  observed 
to  take  place  in  any  object,  to  be  a  sponta- 
neous effect  of  life.  If  a  sheet  of  paper 
was  blown  down  by  the  wind,  he  thought, 
that  it  had  run  away  from  the   table  ;  and, 


106 

if  a  child's  wagon  was  rolling  down  a  hill, 
it  was,  in  his  opinion,  making  an  excursion 
for  its  own  amusement.  He  supposed, 
that  a  tree  manifested  its  life  by  moving  its 
twigs  and  leaves ;  and  its  voice  was  heard 
in  the  rustling  of  its  leaves,  when  they  were 
moved  by  the  wind.  —  He  expressed  his  in- 
dignation against  a  boy  who  struck  the  stem 
of  a  tree  with  a  small  stick,  for  giving  the 
tree  so  much  pain.  — To  judge  from  his  ex- 
pressions, the  balls  of  a  ninepin  alley  ran 
voluntarily  along  ;  they  hurt  other  balls  when 
they  struck  against  them,  and  when  they 
stopped,  it  was  because  they  were  tired. 
Professor  Daumer  endeavored  for  a  long 
time  in  vain,  to  convince  him  that  a  ball  does 
not  move  voluntarily.  He  succeeded  at 
length  in  doing  so,  by  directing  Caspar  to 
make  a  ball  himself  from  the  crumbs  of  his 
bread  and  afterwards  to  roll  it  along.  —  He 
was  convinced  that  a  humming  top,  which  he 
bad  long  been  spinning,  did  not  move  vol- 
untarily, only  by  finding,  that,  after  frequent- 
ly winding  up  the  cord,  his  arm  began  to 
hurt  him ;    being  thus   sensibly  convinced, 


107 

that  he  had  himself  exerted  the  power  which 
was  expended  in  causing  it  to  move. 

To  animals,  particularly,  he  for  a  long 
time  ascribed  the  same  properties  as  to  men ; 
and  he  appeared  to  distinguish  the  one  from 
the  other,  only  by  the  difference  of  their  ex- 
ternal form.  He  was  angry  with  a  cat  for 
taking  its  food  only  with  its  mouth,  without 
ever  using  its  hands  for  that  purpose.  He 
wished  to  teach  it  to  use  its  paws  and  to  sit 
upright.  He  spoke  to  it  as  to  a  being  like 
himself,  and  expressed  great  indignation  at 
its  unwillingness  to  attend  to  what  he  said, 
and  to  learn  from  him.  On  the  contrary,  he 
once  highly  commended  the  obedience  of  a 
certain  dog.  Seeing  a  gray  cat,  he  asked, 
why  she  did  not  wash  herself  that  she  might 
become  white.  When  he  saw  oxen  lying 
down  on  the  pavement  of  the  street,  he  won- 
dered why  they  did  not  go  home  and  lie  down 
there.  If  it  was  replied  that  such  things 
could  not  be  expected  from  animals,  because 
they  were  unable  to  act  thus,  his  answer 
was  immediately  ready :  then  they  ought  to 
learn  it ;  there  were  so  many  things,  which 
he  also  was  obliged  to  learn. 


108 

Still  less  had  he  any  conception  of  the 
origin  and  growth  of  any  of  the  organical 
productions  of  nature.  He  always  spoke  as 
if  all  trees  had  been  stuck  into  the  ground ; 
as  if  all  leaves  and  flowers  were  the  work  of 
human  hands.  The  first  materials  of  an 
idea  of  the  origin  of  plants,  were  furnished 
him  by  his  planting,  according  to  the  direc- 
tions of  his  instructor,  a  few  beans,  with  his 
own  hands,  in  a  flower  pot;  and  by  his 
afterwards  being  made  to  observe,  how  they 
germinated  and  produced  leaves,  as  it  were, 
under  his  own  eye.  But  in  general,  he  was 
accustomed  to  ask,  respecting  almost  every 
production  of  nature,  who  made  that  thing  .^ 

Of  the  beauties  of  nature  he  had  no  per- 
ception. Nor  did  nature  seem  to  interest 
him  otherwise,  than  by  exciting  his  curiosity, 
and  by  suggesting  the  question,  who  made 
such  a  thing  ?  When  for  the  first  lime,  he 
saw  a  rainbow,  its  view  appeared  for  a  few 
moments  to  give  him  pleasure.  But  he  soon 
turned  away  from  it ;  and  he  seemed  to  be 
much  more  interested  in  the  question  who 
made  it  ?  than  in  the  beauty  of  its  apparition. 


109 

Yet,  there  was  one  view,  which  made  t 
remarkable  exception  from  this  observation, 
and  which  must  be  regarded  as  a  great,  and 
never-to-be-forgotten  incident,  in  the  gradual 
development  of  his  mental  life.  It  was  in 
the  month  of  August,  1829,  when,  on  a  fine 
summer  evening,  his  instructor  showed  him 
for  the  first  time  the  starry  heavens.  His 
astonishment  and  transport,  surpassed  all  de- 
scription. He  could  not  be  satiated  with  its 
sight,  and  was  ever  returning  to  gaze  upon 
it;  at  the  same  time  fixing  accurately  with 
his  eye  the  different  groups  that  were  pointed 
out  to  him,  remarking  the  stars  most  distin- 
guished for  their  brightness,  and  observing 
the  differences  of  their  respective  color. 
"That,"  he  exclaimed,  "  is  indeed  the  most 
beautiful  sight  that  I  have  ever  yet  seen  in 
the  world.  But  who  has  placed  all  these 
numerous  beautiful  candles  there  ?  who  lights 
them  ?  w^ho  puts  them  out  ?"  When  he  was 
told  that,  like  the  sun  with  which  he  was  al- 
ready acquainted,  they  always  continue  to 
give  light,  he  asked  again  ;  who  placed  them 
there  above,  that  they  may  always  continue 
to  give  light  ?  At  length,  standing  motionless, 
10 


no 

with  his  head  bowed  down,  and  his  eyes 
staring,  he  fell  into  a  train  of  deep  and  se- 
rious meditation.  When  he  again  recovered 
his  recollection,  his  transport  had  been  suc- 
ceeded by  deep  sadness.  He  sank  trembling 
upon  a  chair,  and  asked,  why  that  wicked 
man  had  kept  him  always  locked  up,  and 
had  never  shown  him  any  of  these  beautiful 
things.  —  He  (Caspar)  had  never  done  any 
harm.  He  then  broke  out  into  a  fit  of  cry- 
ing, which  lasted  for  a  long  time,  and  which 
could  with  difficulty  be  soothed ;  and  said, 
that  the  man  with  whom  he  had  always  been, 
may  now  also  be  locked  up  for  a  few  days, 
that  he  may  learn  to  know,  how  hard  itis 
to  be  treated  so.  Before  seeing  this  beauti- 
ful celestial  display,  Caspar  had  never  shown 
anything  like  indignation  against  that  man ; 
and  much  less  had  he  ever  been  willing  to 
hear  that  he  ought  to  be  punished.  Only 
weariness  and  slumber  were  able  to  quiet 
his  sensations ;  and  he  did  not  fall  asleep  — 
a  thing  that  had  never  happened  to  him  be- 
fore—  until  it  was  about  1 1  o'clock.  Indeed, 
it  was  in  Mr  Daumer's  family  that  he  began 
more  and  more  to  reflect  upon  his  unhappy 


HI 

fate,  and  to  become  painfully  sensible  of 
what  had  been  withheld  and  taken  from  him, 
It  was  only  there,  that  the  ideas  of  family, 
of  relationship,  of  friendship, — of  those  hu- 
man lies,  that  bind  parents  and  children  and 
brothers  and  sisters  to  each  other,  were 
brought  home  to  his  feelings ;  it  was  only 
there,  that  the  names  mother,  sister  and  bro- 
ther were  rendered  intelligible  to  him,  when 
he  saw,  how  mother,  sister  and  brother,  Vt^ere 
reciprocally  united  to  each  other  by  mutual 
affection,  and  by  mutual  endeavors  to  make 
each  other  happy.  He  would  often  ask  for 
an  explanation  of  what  is  meant  by  mother, 
by  brother,  and  by  sister;  and  endeavors 
were  made  to  satisfy  him  by  appropriate  an- 
swers. Soon  after,  he  was  found  sitting  in 
his  chair,  apparently  immersed  in  deep  med- 
itations. When  he  was  asked  what  was  now 
again  the  matter  with  him?  he  replied  with 
tears  :  "he  had  been  thinking  about  what 
was  the  reason,  why  he  had  not  a  mother,  a 
brother  and  a  sister  ?  for  it  was  so  very  pretty 
a  thing  to  have  them."  As  a  state  of  perfect 
rest  from  all  mental  exertion,  was  at  that  time 
particularly  indicated  by  his  extreme  excita- 


112 

bility,  and,  as  exercise  seemed  absolutely 
necessary,  to  strengthen  the  feeble  frame  of 
his  body;  it  seemed,  that,  among  other 
modes  of  exercise,  riding  on  horseback  might 
be  highly  beneficial  to  him  ;  especially,  as 
he  seemed  to  have  taken  a  great  fancy  for 
it.  As  formerly  wooden  horses,  so  now 
living  horses  had  become  his  favorites.  Of 
all  animals,  the  horse  appeared  to  him  to  be 
the  most  beautiful  creature ;  and  whenever 
he  saw  a  horseman  managing  his  steed,  his 
heart  seemed  to  dilate  with  the  wish,  that  he 
also  might  have  such  a  horse  under  him. 
The  riding  master  at  Nuremberg,  Mr  Rum- 
pier,  had  the  complaisance  to  gratify  this 
longing ;  and  he  received  Caspar  among  his 
scholars.  Caspar,  who  with  the  most  intent 
watchfulness  observed  everything  that  was 
told  to  him  or  to  the  other  scholars,  had  in 
the  first  lesson,  not  only  imprinted  the  prin- 
cipal rules  and  elements  of  the  art  of  riding 
upon  his  memory,  but  made  them  his  own  5 
so  that  in  a  few  days  he  had  made  such  pro- 
gress, that  old  and  young  scholars,  who  had 
been  taking  lessons  for  several  months,  were 
obliged  to  acknowledge,  that  he  was  vastly 


113 

their  superior.  His  seat,  his  courage,  and 
his  correct  management  of  his  horse,  aston- 
ished every  one ;  and  he  would  undertake 
feats  of  horsemanship  which,  besides  himself 
and  his  riding  master,  none  dared  to  attempt. 
Once,  when  the  riding  master  had  been 
breaking  in  a  fractious  Turkish  horse,  he  was 
so  little  alarmed  at  the  sight,  that  he  request- 
ed permission  to  ride  that  horse.  —  After 
having  exercised  himself  for  some  time,  the 
boundaries  of  the  riding  school  became  too 
narrow  for  him ;  he  longed  to  manage  his 
horse  in  the  open  air;  and  here  he  evinced, 
besides  great  dexterity,  an  inexhaustible  en- 
durance, hardihood  and  tenacity  of  body, 
which  could  not  be  equalled,  even  by  those 
who  were  most  inured  to  the  exercise  of 
riding.  He  was  particularly  fond  of  spirited 
and  hard  trotting  horses,  and  he  often  rode, 
for  many  hours  together,  without  inter- 
mission, without  tiring,  and  without  chafing 
or  feeling  the  least  uneasiness.  One  after- 
noon, he  rode  in  a  full  trot  from  Nurem- 
berg to  the  so  called  old  Veste  and  back 
again  ;  and  this  feeble  youth,  who,  about 
10* 


114 

that  time,  would  have  been  so  much  fatigued 
with  walking  a  few  miles  in  the  city,  as  to  be 
obliged  to  he  down  quite  exhausted,  and  go 
to  bed  a  few  hours  sooner  than  usual,  return- 
ed from  performing  this  gigantic  feat,  appa- 
rently, as  little  fatigued  as  if  he  had  only  been 
walking  his  horse  from  one  gate  of  the  city 
to  the  other.  This  insensibility  may,  as  Pro- 
fessor Daumer  supposes,  be  chiefly  owing  to 
the  fact,  that  he  had  been  sitting  for  so  many 
years  upon  a  hard  floor  is  indeed  by  no  means 
improbable.  Yet,  besides  this  we  may,  from 
Hauser's  love  of  horses  and  his  almost  in- 
stinctive equestrian  dexterity,  be  led  to  form 
the  perhaps  not  altogether  untenable  conjec- 
ture, that  by  birth  he  must  belong  to  a  nation 
of  horsemen.  For,  that  abilities,  which  at 
first  indeed  were  acquired  artificially,  but 
which  have  been  sustained  by  practice 
throughout  successive  generations,  may  final- 
ly be  propagated  as  natural  propensities  and 
distinguished  capacities  for  acquiring  them, 
is  not  unknown  ;  of  which  fact,  the  dexterity 
in  swimming  peculiar  to  the  South  sea  island- 
ers, and  the  sharp  sightedness  of  the  North 


115 

American  hunter-nations  may   serve  as  in 
stances. 

Besides  his  extraordinary  equestrian  tal- 
ents, the  extreme  peculiarity,  the  almost  pre- 
ternatural acuteness  and  intensity  of  his  sen- 
sual perceptions,  appeared  particularly  re- 
markable in  Caspar  Hauser,  during  his 
abode  in  Professor  Daumer's  house. 

As  to  his  sight,  there  existed  in  respect 
to  him  no  twilight,  no  night,  no  darkness. 
This  was  first  noticed,  by  remarking  that 
at  night  he  stepped  everywhere  with  the 
greatest  confidence  ;  and  that,  in  dark  places, 
he  always  refused  a  light  when  it  was  offer- 
ed to  him.  He  often  looked  with  astonish- 
ment, or  laughed  at  persons,  who  in  dark 
places,  for  instance  when  entering  a  house 
or  walking  on  a  staircase  by  night,  sought 
safety  in  groping  their  way,  or  in  laying 
hold  on  adjacent  objects.  In  twilight,  he 
even  saw  much  better  than  in  broad  day- 
light. Thus,  after  sunset,  he  once  read  the 
number  of  a  house  at  the  distance  of  180 
paces,  which  in  day  light,  he  would  ^not 
have  been   able  to  distinguish   so  far  off. 


116 

Towards  the  close  of  twilight,  he  once  point- 
ed out  to  his  instructor  a  gnat,  that  was 
hanging  in  a  very  distant  spider's  web .  At 
a  distance  of,  certainly  not  less  than  sixty 
paces,  he  could  distinguish  the  single  berries 
in  a  cluster  of  elderberries  from  each  other, 
and  these  berries  from  black  currants.  It 
has  been  proved  by  experiments  carefully 
made,  that  in  a  perfectly  dark  night,  he  could 
distinguish  different  dark  colors,  such  as  blue 
and  green  from  each  other. 

When,  at  the  commencement  of  twilight, 
a  common  eye  could  not  yet  distinguish 
more  than  three  or  four  stars  in  the  sky,  he 
could  already  discern  the  different  groups 
of  stars,  and  he  could  distinguish  the  differ- 
ent single  stars  of  which  they  were  com- 
posed, from  each  other,  according  to  their 
magnitudes  and  the  peculiarities  of  their 
colored  light.  From  the  enclosure  of  the 
castle  at  Nuremberg,  he  could  count  a  row 
of  windows  in  the  castle  of  Marloffstein ; 
and  from  the  castle,  a  row  of  the  windows 
of  a  house  lying  below  the  fortress  of  Roth- 
enberg.     His  sight'  was  as  sharp,  in  distin- 


117 

guishing  objects  near  by,  as  it  was  penetrating, 
in  discerning  them  at  a  distance.  In  anat- 
omizing plants,  he  noticed  subtile  distinctions 
and  delicate  particles,  which  had  entirely 
escaped  the  observation  of  others. 

Scarcely  less  sharp  and  penetrating  than 
his  sight,  was  his  hearing.  When  taking  a 
walk  in  the  fields,  he  once  heard,  at  a  dis- 
tance comparatively  very  great,  the  footsteps 
of  several  persons,  and  he  could  distinguish 
these  persons  from  each  other,  by  their  walk. 
He  had  once  an  opportunity  of  comparing 
the  acuteness  of  his  hearing  with  the  still 
greater  acuteness  of  hearing  evinced  by  a 
blind  man,  who  could  distinguish  even  the 
most  gentle  step  of  a  man  walking  barefooted. 
On  this  occasion,  he  observed  that  his  hear- 
ing had  formerly  been  much  more  acute ; 
but  that  its  acuteness  had  been  considerably 
diminished,  since  he  had  begun  to  eat  meat ; 
so  that  he  could  no  longer  distinguish  sounds 
with  so  great  a  nicety  as  that  blind  man. 

Of  all  his  senses,  that  which  was  the  most 
troublesome  to  him,  which  occasioned  him 
the  most  painful  sensations,  and  which  made 
his  life  in  the  world   more  disagreeable  to 


118 

him  than  any  other,  was  the  sense  of  smell- 
ing. What  to  us  is  entirely  scentless,  was 
not  so  to  him.  The  most  delicate  and  de- 
lightful odors  of  flowers,  for  instance  the 
rose,  were  perceived  by  him  as  insupporta- 
ble stenches,  which  painfully  affected  his 
nerves. 

What  announces  itself  by  its  smell  to  oth- 
ers, only  when  very  near,  was  scented  by 
him  at  a  very  considerable  distance.  Ex- 
cepting the  smell  of  bread,  of  fennel,  of 
anise,  and  of  caraway,  to  which  he  says  he  had 
already  been  accustomed  in  his  prison,  —  for 
his  bread  was  seasoned  with  these  condi- 
ments —  all  kinds  of  smells  were  more  or 
less  disagreeable  to  him.  When  he  was  once 
asked,  which  of  all  other  smells  was  most 
agreeable  to  him  ?  he  answered,  none  at  all. 
His  walks  and  rides,  were  often  rendered 
very  unpleasant  by  leading  him  near  to  flower 
gardens,  tobacco  fields,  nut  trees,  and  other 
plants  which  affected  his  olfactory  nerves ; 
and  he  paid  dearly  for  his  recreations  in 
the  free  air,  by  suffering  afterwards  from 
headaches,  cold  sweats,  and  attacks  of  fever. 
He  smelt  tobacco,  when  in  blossom  in  the 


119 

fields,  at  the  distance  of  fifty  paces,  and  at 
more  than  one  hundred  paces,  when  it  wai^ 
hung  up  in  bundles  to  dry,  as  is  commonly 
the  case  about  the  houses  in  the  villages  near 
Nuremberg.  He  could  distinguish  apple, 
pear,  and  plum  trees  from  each  other  at  a 
considerable  distance,  by  the  smell  of  their 
leaves.  The  different  coloring  materials 
used  in  the  painting  of  walls  and  furniture, 
and  in  the  dying  of  cloths,  &c,  the  pigments 
with  which  he  colored  his  pictures,  the  ink 
or  pencil  whh  which  he  wrote,  all  things 
about  him,  wafted  odors  to  his  nostrils  which 
were  unpleasant  or  painful  to  him.  If  a 
chimney  sweeper  walked  the  streets,  though 
at  the  distance  of  several  paces  from  him,  he 
turned  his  face  shuddering  from  his  smell. 
The  smell  of  an  old  cheese  made  him  feel 
unwell  and  affected  him  with  vomiting. 
The  smell  of  strong  vinegar,  though  fully  a 
yard  distant  from  him,  operated  so  power- 
fully upon  the  nerves  of  his  sight  and  smell, 
as  to  bring  the  water  into  his  eyes.  When  a 
glass  of  wine  was  filled  at  table,  at  a  con- 
siderable distance  from  him,  he  complained 
of  its  disagreeable  smell,  and  of  a  sensation 


120 

of  heat  in  his  head.  The  opening  of  a  bot- 
tle of  champaigne,  was  sure  to  drive  him  from 
the  table  or  to  make  him  sick.  What  we  call 
unpleasant  smells,  were  perceived  by  him  with 
much  less  aversion,  than  many  of  our  per- 
fumes. The  smell  of  fresh  meat  was  to  him 
the  most  horrible  of  all  smells.  When  Pro- 
fessor Daumer,  in  the  autumn  of  1828,  walked 
with  Caspar  near  to  St  John's  churchyard,  in 
the  vicinity  of  Nuremberg,  the  smell  of  the 
dead  bodies,  of  which  the  professor  had  not 
the  slighest  perception,  affected  him  so 
powerfully,  that  he  was  immediately  seized 
with  an  ague,  and  began  to  shudder.  The 
ague  was  soon  succeeded  by  a  feverish  heat, 
which  at  length  broke  out  into  a  violent  per- 
spiration, by  which  his  linen  was  thoroughly 
wet.  He  afterwards  said,  that  he  had  never 
before  experienced  so  great  a  heat.  When 
on  his  return  he  came  near  to  the  city  gate, 
he  said  that  he  felt  better ;  yet  he  complain- 
ed, that  his  sight  had  been  obscured  thereby. 
Similar  effects  were  once  experienced  by 
him,  (on  the  28th  of  September,  1828,) 
when  he  had  been  for  a  considerable  time 
walking  by  the  side  of  a  tobacco  field. 


l«l 

Professor  Daumer  first  noticed  the  pecu- 
liar properties  of  Caspar's  sense  of  feeling 
and  his  susceptibility  of  metallic  excitements, 
while  he  was  yet  at  the  tower.  Here,  a 
stranger  once  made  him  a  present  of  a  little 
wooden  horse  and  a  small  magnet,  with 
which,  as  the  forepart  of  the  horse  was  fur- 
nished with  iron,  it  could  be  made  to  swim 
about  in  different  directions.  When  Caspar 
was  going  to  use  this  toy  according  to  the  in- 
structions he  had  received,  he  felt  himself 
very  disagreeably  affected ;  and  he  imme- 
diately locked  it  up  in  the  box  belonging 
to  it,  without  ever  taking  it  out  again,  as  he 
was  accustomed  to  do  with  his  other  play- 
things, in  order  to  show  it  to  his  visitors. 
When  he  was  afterwards  asked  why  he  did 
so  ?  he  said,  that  that  horse  had  occasioned 
him  a  pain  which  he  had  felt  in  his  whole 
body  and  in  all  its  members.  After  he  had 
removed  to  Professor  Daumer's  house,  he 
kept  the  box  with  the  magnet  in  a  trunk  ;  from 
which,  in  clearing  out  his  things,  it  was  acci- 
dentally taken  and  brought  into  notice.  The 
idea  was  suggested  thereby  to  Professor 
11 


122 

Daumer,  who  recollected  the  occurrence 
that  had  formerly  taken  place,  to  make  an 
experiment  on  Caspar  with  the  magnet  be- 
longing to  the  little  horse.  Caspar  very  soon 
experienced  the  most  surprising  effects:  — 
When  Professor  Daumer  held  the  north  pole 
towards  him  Caspar  put  his  hand  to  the  pit 
of  his  stomach  and,  drawing  his  waistcoat  in 
an  outward  direction,  said  that  it  drew  him 
thus ;  and  that  a  current  of  air  seemed  to  pro- 
ceed from  him.  The  south  pole  affected  him 
less  powerfully  ;  and  he  said  that  it  blew 
upon  him.  Professor  Daumer  and  Professor 
Herrmann  made  afterwards  several  other 
experiments,  similar  to  these  and  calculated 
to  deceive  him ;  but  his  feelings  always  told 
him  very  correctly,  and  even  though  the 
magnet  was  held  at  a  considerable  distance 
from  him,  whether  the  north  pole  or  the 
south  pole  was  held  towards  him.  Such  ex- 
periments could  not  be  continued  long,  be- 
cause the  perspiration  soon  appeared  on  his 
forehead,  and  he  began  to  feel  unwell. 

In  respect  to  his  sensibility  of  the  pre- 
sence of  other  metals,  and  his  ability  to  dis- 


123 

tinguish  them  from  each  other  by  his  feelings 
alone,  Professor  Daumer  has  collected  a  great 
number  of  facts,  from  which  I  shall  select 
only  a  few.  In  autumn,  1828,  he  once  acci- 
dentally entered  a  store  filled  with  hardware 
and  particularly  with  brass  wares.  He  had 
scarcely  entered,  before  he  hurried  out  again, 
being  affected  with  violent  shuddering,  and 
saying  that  he  felt  a  drawing  in  his  whole 
body  in  all  directions.  —  A  stranger  who 
visited  him,  once  slipped  a  piece  of  gold  of 
the  size  of  a  kreutzer  into  his  hand,  without 
Caspar's  being  able  to  see  it ;  he  said  imme- 
diately, that  he  felt  gold  in  his  hand.  — At 
a  time  when  Caspar  was  absent.  Professor 
Daumer  placed  a  gold  ring,  a  steel  and 
brass  compass,  and  a  silver  drawing  pen  un- 
der some  paper,  so  that  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  see  what  was  concealed  under  it. 
Daumer  directed  him  to  move  his  finger  over 
the  paper  without  touching  it ;  he  did  so ; 
and  by  the  difference  of  the  sensation  and 
strength  of  the  attraction,  which  these  diffe- 
rent metals  caused  him  to  feel  at  the  points 
of  his  fingers,  he  accurately    distinguished 


them  all  from  each  other  according  to  their 
respective  matter  and  form.  —  Once,  when 
the  physician,  Dr  Osterhausen,  and  the  royal 
crownfiscal  Brunner  from  Munchen  happen- 
ed to  be  present,  Mr  Daumer  led  Caspar,  in 
order  to  try  him,  to  a  table  covered  with  an 
oil  cloth,  upon  which  a  sheet  of  paper  lay, 
and  desired  him  to  say,  whether  any  metal 
was  under  it ;  he  moved  his  finger  over  it  and 
then  said  :  there  it  draws !  "  But  this 
time,"  replied  Daumer,  "  you  are  neverthe- 
less mistaken ;  for,"  withdrawing  the  paper, 
"  nothing  lies  under  it."  Caspar  seemed  at 
first  to  be  somewhat  embarrassed  ;  but  he  put 
his  finger  again  to  the  place  where  he  thought 
he  had  felt  the  drawing,  and  assured  them 
repeatedly,  that  he  there  felt  a  drawing. 
The  oil  cloth  was  then  removed,  a  stricter 
search  was  made,  and  a  needle  was  actually 
found  there.  —  He  described  the  feeling 
which  minerals  occasioned  him,  as  a  kind  of 
drawing  sensation,  which  passed  over  him, 
accompanied  at  the  same  time  with  a  chill, 
which  ascended  accordingly  as  the  objects 
were  different,  more  or  less  up  the  arm  ;  and 


125 

which  was  also  attended  with  other  distinc- 
tive sensations.  At  the  same  time,  the  veins 
of  the  hand  which  had  been  exposed  to  the 
metallic  excitative,  were  visibly  swollen. 
Towards  the  end  of  December,  1 828, —  when 
the  morbid  excitability  of  his  nerves  had  been 
almost  removed  —  his  sensibility  of  the  in- 
fluence of  metallic  excitatives,  began  gradu- 
ally to  disappear  and  was  at  length  totally  lost. 
Animal  magnetism  manifested  itself  in  him  in 
a  manner  equally  surprising  ;  and  he  retain- 
ed his  receptivity  of  it  for  a  much  longer  time 
than  his  receptivity  of  metallic  excitements. 
But,  as  the  phenomena  which  appeared  in 
Caspar,  agree  in  all  their  essential  character- 
istics with  similar  appearances  in  other  well 
known  cases,  it  would  be  superfluous  to  add 
any  other  observations  respecting  them,  than, 
that  he  always  called  his  sensation  of  the 
streaming  in  upon  him  of  the  magnetic  fluid, 
a  blowing  upon  him.  He  experienced  such 
magnetic  sensations,  not  only  when  in  con- 
tact with  men,  when  they  touched  him  with 
the  hand,  or  when  they,  even  at  some  distance, 
extended  the  points  of  their  fingers  towards 
11* 


126 

him,  fee,  but  also,  when  he  was  in  contact 
with  animals. 

When  he  laid  his  hand  upon  a  horse,  a 
cold  sensation,  as  he  said,  went  up  his  arm ; 
and  when  he  was  mounted,  he  felt  as  if  a 
draught  of  wind  passed  through  his  body. 
But  these  sensations  went  over  after  he  had 
several  times  rode  his  horse  around  the  rid- 
ing school. 

When  he  caught  a  cat  by  the  tail,  he  was 
seized  with  a  strong  fit  of  shivering,  and  felt 
as  if  he  had  received  a  blow  upon  his  hand. 
In  March,  1824,  he  was  for  the  first  time 
taken  to  a  tent  where  foreign  animals  were 
exhibited  :  and  agreeably  to  his  wish,  he 
was  placed  in  the  third  row  of  spectators. 
Immediately  as  he  entered,  he  felt  an  ague, 
which  was  greatly  increased  when  the  rattle- 
snake was  irritated  and  began  to  shake  its  rat- 
tles ;  and  this  was  soon  succeeded  by  a  fever- 
ish heat  and  profuse  perspiration.  The  eyes 
of  the  snake  were  not  directed  to  the  spot 
where  he  sat ;  and  he  maintains,  that  he  was 
not  conscious  of  any  sensation  of  terror  or  of 
apprehension. 


127 

We  now  leave  Caspar's  physical  and  phy- 
siological aspect,  in  order  to  contemplate  the 
interior  region  of  his  mind,  which,  while  it 
exhibits  to  us  the  acuteness  of  his  natural 
understanding,  enables  us  at  the  same  time, 
to  draw  exact  conclusions  concerning  the  fate 
of  his  life,  and  the  state  of  utter  neglect,  in 
which  his  mind  was  left  by  the  profligacy  of 
human  beings.  Though  his  soul  was  filled 
with  a  childish  kindness  and  gentleness, 
which  rendered  him  incapable  of  hurting  a 
worm,  or  a  fly,  much  less  a  man ;  though 
his  conduct,  in  all  the  various  relations  of 
life,  showed  that  his  soul  was  spotless  and 
pure  as  the  reflex  of  the  eternal  in  the  soul 
of  an  angel,  yet  as  we  have  already  observed 
he  brought  with  him  from  his  dungeon  to  the 
light  of  the  world,  not  an  idea,  not  the  least 
presentiment  of  the  existence  of  God,  not  a 
shadow  of  faith  in  any  more  elevated,  in- 
visible existence.  Raised  like  an  animal, 
slumbering  even  while  awake,  sensible  in  the 
desert  of  his  narrow  dungeon,  only  of  the 
crudest  w^ants  of  animal  nature,  occupied 
with  nothing  but  with  the  taking  of  his  food, 
and   the  eternal   sameness  of   his   wooden 


128 

horses,  the  life  of  his  soul  could  be  com- 
pared only  to  the  life  of  an  oyster,  which  ad- 
hering to  its  rock,  is  sensible  of  nothing  but 
the  absorption  of  its  food,  and  perceives  only 
the  eternal  uniform   dashing  of  the    waves, 
and,  in  its  narrow  shell,  finds  no  room,  even 
for  the  most  confined  idea  of  a  world  without 
it.     Still  less  was  he  capable  of  having  the 
least  presentiment  of  anything  that  is  above 
the  earth,  and  above  all  w^orlds.     Thus  came 
Caspar,  unswayed  indeed  by  prejudices,  but 
without  any  sense  for  what  is  invisible,  incor- 
poreal and  eternal,  to  this  upperworld,  where, 
seized   and  driven  around   by  the  stunning 
vortex  of  external  things,  he  was  too  much 
occupied  with  visible  realities  to  suffer  the 
want  of  anything  that  is  invisible  to  become 
perceptible  to  his  mind.     Nothing,  at  first 
appeared  to  him  to  have  any  reality,   but 
what  he  could  see,  hear,  feel,  smell,  or  taste  ; 
and  his  awakened,  and  soon  also  speculative 
understanding,  would  admit  of  nothing,  that 
was  not  based   upon  his  sensual  conscious- 
ness,  that  could  not  be   placed  within  the 
reach  of  his  senses,  that  could  not  be  pre- 
sented to  him,  in  the  form  of  some  coarse 


129 


(Ul?lVi3ilSIT" 


conception  of  his  understanding^iSfficiently 


near  to  be  brought  home  to  him.  All  at- 
tempts made,  in  the  common  way,  to  awak- 
en religious  ideas  in  his  mind,  were  for  a 
long  time  entirely  fruitless.  With  great 
naivete,  he  complained  to  Professor  Daumer, 
that  he  did  not  know  what  the  clergymen 
meant  by  all  the  things  that  they  told  him  ; 
of  which  he  could  comprehend  nothing.  In 
order  somewhat  to  overcome  his  coarse 
meterialistic  ideas.  Professor  Daumer  en- 
deavored, in  the  following  manner,  to  make 
him  receptive  of  some  preparatory  notions 
of  the  possibility  to  conceive  and  to  believe 
the  existence  of  an  invisible  world,  and  par- 
ticularly the  existence  of  God.  Mr  Dau- 
mer asked  him,  whether  he  had  not  thoughts, 
ideas,  and  a  will.  And  when  he  acknow- 
ledged that  he  had,  he  asked  him  whether 
he  could  see  them,  hear  them,  &;c  ?  When 
he  said  that  he  could  not,  he  made  him 
observe,  that  he  was  therefore  conscious 
that  there  do  exist  things  which  we  cannot 
see,  nor  otherwise  perceive  externally.  Cas- 
par acknowledged  this ;  and  he  was  much 
astonished  at  this  discovery  of  the  incorpo- 


130 

real  natuce  of  our  interior  being.  Daumer 
continued,  "a  being  that  can  think  and  will, 
is  called  a  spirit ;  God  is  such  a  spirit,  and 
between  him  and  the  world,  there  exists  a 
relation,  something  like  that  between  Cas- 
par's thought  and  his  body  ;  as  he,  Caspar, 
can  produce  changes  in  his  own  body  by 
his  invisible  thinking,  and  willing,  as  he  for 
instance  can  move  his  hands  and  feet,  so 
God  can  produce  changes  in  the  world ;  he 
is  the  life  in  all  things ;  he  is  the  spirit  that 
is  operative  in  the  whole  world  !"  —  Professor 
Daumer  now  ordered  him  to  move  his  arm, 
and  then  asked  him  "  if  he  could  not  at  the 
same  time  lift  and  move  the  other  arm?" 
Certainly  !  "  Now,  hence  you  see  then," 
continued  Professor  Daumer,  **  that  your 
invisible  thought  and  will,  that  is,  your  spirit, 
may  be  present  and  operative  in  two  of  your 
members  at  once,  and  consequently  in  two 
different  places  at  the  same  time.  The  case 
is  the  same  in  respect  to  God ;  but  on  a 
grand  scale ;  and  now,  you  may  form  some 
conception  of  what  I  mean  by  saying,  that 
God  is  everywhere  present."  —  Caspar 
evinced   great  joy  when  this  had  been  ex- 


151 

plained  to  him  ;  and  he  said  to  his  instructoc, 
that  what  he  had  now  told  him,  was  some- 
thing "  real ;"  whereas  other  people  had 
never  told  him  anything  upon  that  subject 
that  was  right.  —  Yet,  instructions  such  as 
these,  had  for  a  long  time  no  other  effect 
than  to  render  Hauser  less  refractory,  when 
the  idea  of  God  was  presented  to  his  mind  ; 
since  thus  a  way  was  found,  by  which  reli- 
gious ideas  could  be  instilled  in  him.  But 
the  apparently  inborn  pyrrhoism  of  his  na- 
ture, would  nevertheless,  on  various  occa- 
sions, break  out  anew  in  different  forms  and 
in  different  directions.  —  He  once  asked, 
whether  we  might  pray  to  God  for  any  par- 
ticular thing,  and  whether  he  would  grant  us 
what  we  prayed  for;  for  instance,  if  he 
prayed  to  God  to  cure  the  malady  of  his 
eyes  with  which  he  was  afflicted,  would  he 
do  it?  He  was  answered,  that  he  was  cer- 
tainly permitted  to  pray ;  but  that  he  must 
leave  it  to  the  wisdom  of  God  to  determine, 
whether  it  was  proper  that  his  prayer  should 
be  granted.  "  But,"  he  replied,  "  I  wish 
for  the  use  of  my  eyes,  that  I  may  learn  and 
work  ;  and  that  must  be  good  for  me.    God 


132 

can  have  notliing  against  it."  If  he  was 
then  instructed,  that  God  has  inscrutable 
reasons  for  refusing  us  even  what  most  evi- 
dently appears  to  be  good  for  us,  in  order, 
for  instance,  to  try  us,  and  to  exercise  our 
patience,  such  doctrines  were  always  receiv- 
ed by  him  coldly,  and  met  with  no  acknow- 
ledgment. —  His  doubts,  questions,  and  ob- 
jections, frequently  embarrassed  his  instruc- 
tor not  a  little ;  for  instance,  once  when  the 
conversation  was  concerning  the  omnipotence 
of  God,  he  proposed  the  question  :  Can 
Almighty  God  also  make  time  recede  ?  a 
question,  which  contained  a  bitter  sarcastic 
allusion  to  the  fate  of  his  earlier  life,  and  in 
the  back  ground,  concealed  the  inquiry, 
whether  God  could  restore  his  childhood 
and  youth,  which  had  been  lost  to  him  in  a 
living  grave.  From  these  few  remarks  we 
may  infer,  what  was  in  his  mind,  the  state 
of  positive  religion,  of  christian  dogmatics, 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  and  of 
similar  doctrines,  from  stating  his  objections 
to  which  I  willingly  refrain. 

There  were  two  orders  of  men,  to  whom 
Caspar  had,  for  a  considerable  time,  an  un- 


133 

conquerable  aversion ; —  physicians  and  cler- 
gymen ;  to  the  first,  "  on  account  of  the 
abominable  medicines  which  they  prescribed 
and  with  which  they  made  people  sick;" 
and  to  the  latter,  because,  as  he  expressed 
himself,  they  made  people  afraid,  and  con- 
fused them  with  incomprehensible  stuff. 
'  When  he  saw  a  minister,  he  was  seized  with 
horror  and  dismay.  If  he  was  asked  the 
cause  of  this,  he  would  reply  :  "  because 
these  people  have  already  tormented  me 
very  much.  Once,  when  1  was  at  the  tower, 
four  of  them  came  to  me  all  at  once,  and 
told  me  things  which  at  that  time  I  could  not 
at  all  comprehend  ;  for  instance,  that  God 
had  created  all  things  out  of  nothing.  When 
I  asked  them  for  an  explanation,  they  all 
began  to  cry  out  at  the  same  time,  and 
every  one  said  something  different.  When 
I  told  them:  all  these  things  1  do  not  yet  un- 
derstand ;  I  must  first  learn  to  read  and 
write,  they  replied  :  these  things  must  be 
learned  first.  Nor  did  they  go  away,  until 
I  signified  to  them  my  desire,  that  they 
would  at  length  leave  me  at  rest."  In 
churches,  therefore,  Caspar  felt  by  no  means 
12 


134 

happy.  The  crucifixes  which  he  saw  there, 
excited  a  horrible  shuddering  in  him ;  be- 
cause for  a  long  time  he  involuntarily  as- 
cribed life  to  images.  The  singing  of  the 
congregation,  seemed  to  him  as  a  repulsive 
bawling.  '*  First,"  said  he,  after  returning 
from  attending  a  church,  "  the  people  bawl ; 
and  when  they  have  done,  the  parson  begins 
to  bawl." 


CHAPTER  VII. 

By  the  careful  attention  of  Mr  Daumer's 
worthy  family,  by  the  use  of  proper  exercise, 
and  by  the  judicious  employment  of  his  time, 
Caspar  Hauser's  health  had  been  greatly 
improved.  He  was  diligent  in  learning,  in- 
creased in  knowledge,  and  made  considera- 
ble progress  in  cyphering  and  writing;  and 
he  had  progressed  so  far  in  the  latter,  that 
about  the  summer  of  1829,  he  was  able,  at 
the  desire  o  fthose  who  directed  his  actions, 
to  collect  his  recollections  of  his  life  into  a 
written  memoir.  This  first  attempt  at  an 
original  exposition  of  his  thoughts,  although 
it  could  only  be  considered  as  a  document 
exhibiting  the  retarded  progress,  and  the 
consequent  indigence  and  awkwardness  of 
his  still  childish  mind,  was  nevertheless 
viewed  by  him,  with  the  eyes  of  a  young 
author  when  the  first  production  of  his  pen 
is  about  to  appear  in  print.      This   itch  of 


136 

authorship,  caused  this  so  called  history  of 
his  life,  to  be  shown  both  to  native  and  for- 
eign visitors ;  and  the  story  soon  ran,  and 
even  appeared  in  several  public  journals,  that 
Caspar  Hauser  was  employed  in  writing  a 
history  of  his  hfe.  It  is  highly  probable  that 
this  very  report  occasioned  the  catastrophe, 
which,  soon  after  it  was  circulated,  in  the 
month  of  October,  the  same  year  (1829), 
was  intended  to  bring  his  short  life  to  a  tragic 
end.  Caspar  Hauser,  —  if  we  may  be  per- 
mitted to  indulge  in  conjectures  —  had  at 
length  become,  to  those  who  kept  him  se- 
cretly confined,  a  dangerous  burthen.  The 
child  which  they  had  so  long  fed,  had  be- 
come a  boy,  and  was  at  length  grown  up 
into  a  young  man.  He  became  restless,  his 
powers  of  life  became  more  vivid,  he  some- 
times made  a  noise,  and  it  was  necessary  to 
keep  him  quiet  by  means  of  severe  chastise- 
ment, of  which  he  still  bore  fresh  marks 
when  he  came  to  Nuremberg.  Why  they 
did  not  get  rid  of  him  in  some  other  manner  ? 
Why  they  did  not  destroy  him  ?  Why  as  a 
child  he  had  not  been  put  out  of  the  world  ? 
Whether,  it  may  not  have  been  with  instruc- 


137 

tions  to  murder  him,  that  he  was  first  deliv- 
ered to  his  attendant,  who,  either  from  com- 
passion, or  with  an  intention  to  wait  for  times 
more  favorable  to  the  child  who  was  to  be 
made    away  with,  or  for  other  reasons  that 
may  be  imagined,  had,  at  his  own  risk,  kept 
the  child  alive   and  fed  it? — All   this  must 
be  left  to  conjecture.     However  this  may  be, 
the  time  was    come,   or   rather  it   was  not 
come  ;  the  secreted  individual  could  no  long- 
er be   kept  concealed  ;  it  was  necessary  to* 
get  rid  of  him  in  some  way  or  other,  and  — ^ 
in  a  beggar's  garb  —  he  was  sent  to  Nurem- 
berg.     It  was  intended,  that  he  should  dis- 
appear  there,  either   as  a  vagabond  or  an 
idiot,   in  some  public  institution,  or,   if  any 
attention  was  paid  to   the  recommendation 
which   he  brought  with   him,  as  a  soldier  in 
some  regiment.     Contrary  to  every  expecta- 
tion, none  of  these  events  took  place  ;  the  un- 
known  foundling  met  with  humane  commis- 
eration and  became  the  object  of  universal 
public  attention ;  the   public  journals   were 
filled  with  accounts  of  this  mysterious  young 
man  and  with   conjectures  respecting  him. 
From  being  the  adopted  child  of  the  city  of 
12* 


138 

Nuremberg,  for  which  the  magistracy  of  the 
city  had  declared  him,  he  became,  at  length, 
the  child  —  of  Europe.  The  development 
of  Caspar's  mind  is  everywhere  spoken  of, 
marvellous  things  are  related  to  the  public 
of  his  progress,  and  now,  —  this  human  ani- 
mal is  writing  a  history  of  his  life  I  He  who 
gives  a  history  of  his  life,  must  be  able  to 
say  something  relating  to  it. 

Those  persons,  therefore,  who  had  every 
reason  to  wish  to  remain  in  the  darkness 
which  they  had  drawn  around  themselves, 
and  around  all  traces  leading  to  them,  could 
not  but  feel  very  uneasy  at  hearing  of  this 
intended  autobiography. 

The  plan  to  bury  poor  Caspar  alive  in  the 
waves  of  a  world  entirely  unknown  to  him, 
had  failed  ;  and  it  was  only  now  that  Caspar's 
murder  became,  in  the  opinion  of  those  who 
had  committed  this  secret  crime,  in  a  man- 
ner, an  act  of  self-defence. 

Caspar  was  accustomed,  between  1 1  and 
12  o'clock,  to  go  out  of  the  house  in  order 
to  attend  a  lesson  in  cyphering.  But  on 
Saturday,  the  17th  of  October,  he  was  direct- 
ed by  his  tutor  to  remain  at  home,  because 


139 

he  felt  unwell.  About  that  hour,  Profes- 
sor Daumer  took  a  walk;  and  —  besides 
Caspar,  who  was  known  to  be  in  his  cham- 
ber,— none  remained  at  home,  but  Daumer^s 
mother  and  his  sister,  who,  about  that  time 
were  busy  sweeping  the  house. 

The  house,  in  which  Caspar  lived  at  Dau- 
mer's,  lies  in  a  distant  and  little  frequented 
part  of  the  city,  and  is  situated  on  an  open 
place  of  an   extraordinary  size,  which   can 
scarcely  be  overlooked.     The  house,  which, 
being  built  according  to  the  ancient  custom 
of  Nuremberg,  is  very  irregular  and   full  of 
edges  and  corners,  consists  of  a  front  build- 
ing in  which  the   landlord  lived,  and  a  back 
building  in  which  Daumer's  family  resided. 
A  narrow  house  door  leads,  by  a  passage 
inclosing  the  yard  on  two  sides,  to  the  stair- 
case belonging  to  Daumer's  quarters;  and, 
besides  a  wood   room,  a  place  for  poultry, 
and  similar  conveniences,  there  is  in  a  corner, 
close  under  a  winding  staircase,  a  very  low, 
small  and  narrow  water  closet.      The  small 
space  in  which  this  is,   was  rendered  still 
smaller  by  a  screen  placed  before  k>     Who- 
ever is  in  the  entry  upon  a   level  with  the 


140 

ground,  (for  instance  near  the  wood  room,) 
is  very  well  able  to  observe,  who  comes 
down  stairs  and  enters  the  water  closet. 

About   12    o'clock  the  same  day,  when 
Professor   Daumer's    sister   Catherine   was 
busy  sweeping  the  house,  she  observed,  upon 
the  staircase,  which  leads  from  the  first  story 
to   the   yard,   several   spots   of    blood   and 
bloody   footsteps,     whicb   she    immediately 
wiped  away,  without,  on  that  account,  think- 
ing that  anything  extraordinary  had  happen- 
ed.    She  supposed,  that  Caspar  might  have 
been  seized  on  the  staircase  with  a  bleeding 
at  the  nose,  and  she  went  to  his  chamber,  to 
ask  him  about  it.     She  did  not  find  Caspar 
there ;  but  she  observed,  also  in  his  room, 
near    the    door,    a    few    bloody   footsteps. 
After  she  had  again  gone   down  stairs,  in 
order  to  sweep  also   the  above   mentioned 
passage  in  the  yard,  single  traces  of  blood 
again  met  her  eye,  upon  the  stone  pavement 
of  the  passage.     She  went  on  to  the  water 
closet  where  there  lay  a  dense  heap  of  clotted 
blood  :   this   she  showed  to  the  daughter  of 
the  landlord,  who  had  just  come  to  the  spot, 
and  who  was  of  opinion  that  it  was  the  blood 


141 

of  a  cat.  Daunier's  sister,  who  immediately 
spunged  the  blood  off,  was  now  still  more  con- 
firmed in  the  opinion,  that  Hauser  had  stained 
the  staircase  :  he  must  have  trod  upon  this  clot 
of  blood,  and  neglected  to  wipe  his  feet  be- 
fore going  up  stairs. —  It  was  already  past 
12  o'clock,  the  table  was  laid  ;  and  Caspar, 
who  at  other  times  had  always  punctually  come 
to  dinner,  staid  this  time  away.  The  mother 
of  Professor  Daumer  went  therefore  down 
from  her  chamber  to  call  Caspar,  but  was 
as  unsuccessful  in  finding  him,  as  her 
daughter  had  been  before  her. 

Mrs  Daumer  was  just  in  the  act  of  going 
once  more  up  into  his  chamber,  when  she  was 
struck  with  observing  something  moist  upon 
the  cellar  door,  which  appeared  to  her  like 
blood.  Fearing  that  some  misfortune  had 
happened,  she  lifted  up  the  cellar  door ;  she  ob- 
served, upon  all  the  steps  of  the  cellar,  drops 
or  large  spots  of  blood ;  she  went  down  to  the 
lowest  step  ;  and  she  saw,  in  a  corner  of  the 
cellar  which  was  filled  with  water,  something 
white,  glimmering  at  a  distance.  Mrs  Dau- 
mer then  hurried  back,  and  requested  the 
landlord's  servant  maid  to  go  into  the  cellar 


142 

with  a  candle  to  see  what  the  white  thing 
was  that  lay  there.  She  had  scarcely  held 
the  candle  to  the  object  pointed  out  to  her 
when  she  exclaimed :  "  There  lies  Caspar 
dead." — The  servant  maid,  and  the  son  of 
the  landlord,  who  in  the  nneantime  had  conie 
to  their  assistance,  now  lifted  Caspar,  who 
gave  no  signs  of  life  and  whose  face  was 
pale  as  death  and  covered  with  blood,  from 
the  ground,  and  carried  him  out  of  the  cellar. 
When  he  was  brought  up  stairs  the  first  sign 
of  life  that  he  gave  was  a  deep  groan  ;  and 
he  then  exclaimed,  with  a  hollow  voice, 
"  man  !  man  !" — He  was  immediately  put  to 
bed;  where,  with  his  eyes  shut,  he  from 
time  to  time  cried  out,  or  murmured  to  him- 
self, the  following  words  and  broken  sen- 
tences.—  "  Mother ! — tell  professor  !  — man 
beat  —  black  man,  like  sweep  (kuchen)*  — 

*  This  refers  to  an  instance  in  which  Caspar  had 
been  very  much  frightened  by  the  chimney  sweeper 
who  was  sweeping  in  the  kitchen.  The  wordkuchen 
probably  meant  koche — kitchen,  which  name  he  gave 
to  the  chimney  sweeper,  who,  as  mentioned  above, 
had  frightened  him  in  the  kitchen.  T. 


143 

tell  mother  —  not  found  in  my  chamber  — 
hide  in  the  cellar." 

Upon  this  he  was  seized  with  a  severe 
ague,  which  was  soon  succeeded  by  violent 
paroxysms,  and  finally  by  a  complete  frenzy, 
in  which  several  strong  men  were  scarcely- 
able  to  hold  him  down.     In  these  fits,  he  bit 
a  considerable  piece  out  of  a  porcelain  cup, 
in  which  a  warm  draught  had  been  brought 
him  ;  and   he  swallowed   it  along  with  the 
drink.     For  almost  fortyeight  hours,  he  re- 
mained in  a  state  of  perfect  absence  of  mind. 
In  his  delirium,  during  the  night,  he  uttered 
from  time  to  time,  the  following  broken  sen- 
tences :     "  Tell  it  to  the  burghermaster  — 
Not  lock  up.  —  Man  away  !  —  man  comes  ! 
—  Away  bell  ! — I  to   Furth  ride  down.  — 
Not  to  Erlangen  in   the  whale  —  not  kill, 
not  hold  the  mouth  shut  —  not  die  !  —  Hau- 
ser,  where  been ;  not  to  Furth  to-day  ;  not 
more  away  !    head  ache  already.  —  Not  to 
Erlangen  in  the  whale  !     The  man  kill  me  ! 
Away  1     Don't  kill !  I  all  men  love ;  do  no 
one  anything.  Lady  mayoress  help  !  — Man, 
I  love  you  too ;  don't  kill !  — Why  the  man 


144 

kill  ?  I  have  done  you  nothing.  —  Don't  kill 
me  !  I  will  yet  beg  that  you  may  not  be 
locked  up.  —  Never  have  let  me  out  of  my 
prison,  you  would  even  kill  me  ! —  You 
should  first  have  killed  me,  before  I  under- 
stood what  it  is  to  live.  —  You  must  say  why 
you  locked  me  up,"  &c.  Most  of  these  sen- 
tences, he  repeated,  mingled  incoherently 
with  each  other.  The  result  of  the  visitation 
instituted,  with  the  assistance  of  the  medical 
officer  of  the  city  jurisdiction,  by  the  court  of 
inquiry  appointed  by  the  judicial  authorities, 
—  to  which  the  case  was  at  length  referred, 
by  the  police  court  —  was  as  follows  : 

"  The  forehead  of  Hauser,  who  was  lying 
in  bed,  was  found  to  be  hurt  by  a  sharp 
wound  in  the  middle  of  it,  concerning  the 
size  and  quality  of  which,  the  court's  medical 
officer  has  given  the  following  report,  which 
was  entered  into  the  protocol. 

"  The  wound  is  upon  the  forehead,  about 
lOj  lines  from  the  root  of  the  nose,  running 
across  it ;  so  that  two  thirds  of  the  wound  are 
on  the  right,  and  one  third  of  it  on  the  left 
side  of  the  forehead  The  whole  length  of 
tho  wound,  which  runs  in  a  straight  line,  is 
19|  lino«. 


145 

**  At  present,  (October  20th)  the  edges  of 
ihe  wound  are  closed,  and  there  scarcely  re- 
mains an  imerstlce  of  a  quarter  of  a  line  be- 
tween them.  But  tills  is  somewhat  broader 
at  its  left  end  than  throughout  the  whole 
course  of  the  wound ;  on  which  account  it 
is  to  be  presumed,  that  it  there  penetrated 
deepest. —  As  far  as  regards  the  origin  of 
the  wound  it  was  evidently  given  to  Hauser 
with  a  sharp  cutting  instrument,  by  a  stroke 
or  thrust(r).  The  sharp  edges  of  the  wound 
indicate  the  shnrpness  of  the  instrument's 
blade  ;  tlie  straightness  of  tiie  wound  indi- 
cates that  it  was  occasioned  by  a  stroke  or 
thrust  (?)  ;  because,  if  the  wound  had  been 
purely  a  cut,  its  beginning  and  end  would 
have  been  more  shallow  and  narrow,  but  the 
middle  deeper  ;  and,  on  that  very  account,  it 
would  appear  more  gaping.  It  is  however 
most  probable,  that  it  was  made  by  a  stroke  5 
because,  if  it  had  been  made  by  a  thrust,  the 
adjoining  parts  would  have  been  more  bruis- 
ed." The  wound,  as  the  physician  declared, 
was  in  itself  inconsiderable  ;  any  other  person 
would  have  been  cured  of  it  in  six  days. 
But,  on  account  of  the  highly  excitable  state  ol 
13 


146 

Caspar's  nervous  system,  it  was  twentytwo 
days  before  he  recovered  from  the  conse- 
quences of  his  wound. 
.  Caspar  relates  the  substance  of  what  hap- 
pened, as  follows :  "  On  the  17th  I  had  been 
obliged  to  put  off  the  cyphering  lesson  which 

I  attended  every  day,  at  Mr  ErJangen's,  from 

II  to  12  o'clock;  because,  having,  an  hour 
before  received  a  walnut  from  Dr  Preu,  I 
felt  very  ill ;  although  I  had  not  eaten  more 
than  a  quarter  of  it.  Professor  Daumer, 
whom  I  informed  of  the  circumstance,  there- 
fore told  me,  that  I  should  this  time  not  at- 
tend my  usual  cyphering  lesson,  but  remain 
at  home.  Professor  Daumer  went  out,  and 
1  retired  to  my  chamber. 

"  I  intended  to  employ  myself  in  writing ; 
but  was  prvented  by  indisposition  from  do- 
ing so,  and  compelled  to  go  to  the  water- 
closet.  While  there,  I  heard  a  noise,  like 
that  which  is  usually  heard  when  the  door  of 
the  wood-room  is  opened,  and  which  is  well 
known  to  me  ;  I  also  heard  a  soft  sound  of 
the  house  door  bell ;  this,  did  not  however 
appear  to  proceed  from  ringing  it,  but  from 
some  immediate  contact  with  the  bell  itself. 


147 

Immedialely  after,  I  heard  gentle  footsteps 
from  the  lower  passage ;  and  at  the  same 
time  1  saw,  through  the  space  between  the 
screen  before  the  private  closet  and  the 
small  staircase,  that  a  man  was  sneaking 
through  the  passage.  I  observed  the  en- 
tirely black  head  of  the  man,  and  thought  it 
was  the  chimney  sweeper.  Rut,  when  I 
was  afterwards  preparing  to  leave  the  nar- 
row apartment  in  which  I  was,  and  w^hen  my 
head  was  somewhat  outside  of  it,  the  black 
man  stood  suddenly  before  me,  and  gave  me 
a  blow  on  the  head ;  in  consequence  of  which 
I  immediately  fell  with  my  whole  body  on 
the  ground."  (Now  follows  a  description 
of  the  man,  which  cannot  well  be  communi- 
cated.) ''  Of  the  face  and  the  hair  of  the 
man,  I  could  perceive  nothing  ;  for  he  was 
veiled,  and  indeed,  as  I  believe,  with  a  black 
silk  handkerchief  drawn  over  his  whole 
head. 

"  After  I  had  lain,  probably,  for  a  consider- 
able time,  without  consciousness,  I  came  again 
to  my  senses.  I  felt  something  warm  trickling 
down  my  face,  and  both  of  my  hands,  which 
I  raised  to  my  forehead,  were  in  consequence 


148 

thereof  stained  with  blood.  Frightened  at 
this,  I  intended  to  run  to  nnother  ;"^  but,  being 
seized  with  confusion  and  terror,  (for  I  was 
still  afraid,  that  the  nian  who  had  struck  me 
might  attack  me  again,)  instead  of  reaching 
mother's  door,  I  ran  to  the  clothes  press  be- 
fore my  room.f  Here  my  sight  failed  me, 
and  I  endeavored  to  keep  myself  upright  by 
holding  fast  to  the  press  with  my  hands. J 
When  I  had  recovered,  I  wished  again  to  go 
to  mother's ;  but,  being  still  more  confused 
and  straying  still  further,  instead  of  going  up 
stairs,  I  discovered  with  horror  that  I  had 
come  down  stairs,  and  was  again  in  the  pas- 
sage. The  trap  door  of  the  cellar  was 
closed.  Whence  I  got  the  strength  to  lift  the 
heavy  trap  door,  is  to  this  very  moment  in- 
conceivable to  me.  Nevertheless  I  did  lift 
it,  and  slipped  down  into  the  cellar.  §     By 

*  So  he  always  called  his  foster  mother,  the  mother 
of  Professor  Daumer. 

t  Every  step  of  Caspar's,  which  is  mentioned  in  the 
above  narrative,  was  found  to  be  marked  with  bloody 
traces. 

t  The  bloody  marks  upon  the  press  were  still  visible 
for  several  days  afterwards. 

§  How  true  and  naturally,  are  here  the  effects  of 
terror  and  of  fear  described! — That  Caspar  did  not 


149 

the  cold  water  in  the  cellar,  through  which 
I  was  obliged  to  walk,  I  was  restored  to  a 
more  perfect  state  of  self-consciousness.  I 
observed  a  dry  spot  on  the  floor  of  the 
cellar ;  and  T  sat  down  upon  it.  I  had 
scarcely  sat  down,  when  I  heard  the  clock 
strike  twelve.  I  then  began  to  reflect: 
*  here  you  are  entirely  forsaken,  no  one  will 
look  for  you  here.' —  This  thought  filled  my 
eyes  with  tears,  until  I  was  seized  with  vom- 
iting, and  then  lost  my  recollection.  When 
1  again  regained  my  recollection,  I  found 
myself  in  my  room  upon  the  bed,  and 
mother  by  my  side." 

In  respect  to  the  manner  in  which  he  was 
wounded,  I  (the  author  of  this)  cannot  join 
the  opinion  of  the  court. 

I  have  several  reasons,  but  which  cannot 
with  propriety  be  publicly  made  known,  for 

tireep  into  the  cellar  through  the  open  cellar  door  and 
that  it  was  really  necessary  for  him  first  to  open  it, 
is  a  matter  of  fact,  which  cannot  be  doubted  ;  and  it 
is  equally  true,  that  the  opening  of  the  cellar  door, 
which  to  so  feeble  a  person  as  Caspar  was  a  Herculean 
labor,  would  at  any  other  time  or  in  any  other  cir- 
cumstances, have  been  quite  impossible  to  him. 

«    13* 


150 

believing  that  Caspar  Hauser's  wound  was 
neither  made  by  a  stroke,  nor  by  a  thrust ; 
neither  with  a  sabre,  with  a  hatchet,  with  a 
chisel,  nor  with  a  common  knife  made  for 
cutting,  but  with  another  well  known  sharp 
cutting  instrument ;  and  that  the  wound  was 
not  aimed  at  the  head  but  at  the  throat ;  but 
(because,  at  the  sight  of  the  man  and  of  the 
armed  fist  which  was  suddenly  extending 
itself  towards  his  throat,  Caspar  instinctively 
stooped)  that  the  blow  glanced  from  his  throat 
which  was  protected  by  his  chin,  and  was 
led  upwards.  The  person  who  committed  the 
act  may  have  thought,  when  Caspar  immedi- 
ately fell  down  bleeding,  that  it  had  fully 
succeeded  ;  and  he  dared  not  to  remain  any 
longer  by  his  victim  in  order  to  examine 
whether  it  had  fully  succeeded  or  not,  and  in 
case  it  had  not  to  repeat  the  blow,  because,  on 
account  of  the  situation  of  the  place,  he  had 
every  moment  great  reason  to  fear  that  he 
would  be  detected  by  somebody.  Thus 
Caspar  escaped,  with  a  wound  on  the  fore- 
bead. 

Other  indications  that  might  lead  to  the 


151 

discovery  of  the  person  who  had  committed 
the  act,  were  soon  discovered.  Among 
others  for  instance,  it  was  discovered  that, 
on  the  same  day  and  in  the  same  hour  when 
the  deed  was  done,  the  man  described  by 
Caspar  was  seen  to  go  out  of  Daumer's 
house ;  that  nearly  about  the  same  time,  the 
same  well  dressed  person  described  by  Cas- 
par was  seen  washing  his  hands  (which  were 
probably  bloody,)  in  a  water  trough  which 
stands  in  the  street,  not  very  far  from  Dau- 
mer's house  ;  that,  about  four  days  after  the 
deed,  a  well  dressed  gentleman,  who  wore 
clothes  like  those  worn  by  the  black  man 
described  by  Hauser,  went  up  to  a  low  wo- 
man who  was  going  to  the  city,  and  question- 
ed her  earnestly  concerning  the  life  or  death 
of  the  wounded  Caspar;  that  he  then  went 
with  this  woman  close  to  the  gate,  where  a 
handbill  was  to  be  seen  concerning  Hauser's 
wound,  which  had  been  stuck  up  by  the 
magistracy  ;  and  that  he  afterwards,  without 
entering  the  city,  absented  himself  in  a  very 
suspicious  manner,  fcc. 

But,  if  the  reader's  curiosity  or  his  love  of 


162 

knowledge  should  inspire  him  with  a  wish 
to  learn  slill  more ;  if  he  should  ask  me 
what  were  the  resultsof  the  judicial  inquiries 
which  were  instituted  ;  if  he  should  desire  to 
know,  to  what  tracks  they  have  led,  what 
spots  were  actually  struck  by  the  divining  rod, 
and  what  was  afterwards  done ;  I  shall  be 
under  the  necessity  of  answering,  that  the 
laws,  as  well  as  the  nature  of  the  case,  forbid 
the  author  to  speak  publicly  of  things,  which 
only  the  servant  of  the  state  can  be  permit- 
ted to  know  or  to  conjecture.  Yet  I  may 
permit  myself  to  pronounce  the  assurance, 
that  the  judicial  authorities  have,  with  a  faith- 
fulness at  once  unwearied  and  regardless  of 
consequences,  endeavored  to  prosecute  their 
inquiries  concerning  the  case,  by  the  aid  of 
every,  even  the  most  extraordinary  means, 
which  were  at  their  disposal ;  and,  that  their 
inquiries  have  not  been  altogether  unsuc- 
cessful. 

But,  not  all  heights,  depths,  and  distances, 
are  accessible  to  the  reach  of  civil  justice. 
And,  in  respect  to  many  places  in  which  jus- 
tice might  have  reason  to  seek  the  giant  perpe- 
trator of  such  a  crime,  it  would  be  necessary, 


153 

in  order  to  penetrate  into  them,  to  be  in  pos- 
session of  Josliua's  ram's  horns,  or  at  least  of 
Oberon's  horn,  in  order,  for  some  time  at 
least,  to  suspend  the  action  of  the  powerful 
enchanted  Colossuses  that  guard  the  golden 
gates  of  certain  castles. 

But  what  is  veiled  in  blackest  shades  of  night, 
Must,  when  the  morning  dawns,  be  brought  to  light. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

If  Caspar,  who  may  now  be  reckoned 
among  civilized  and  well  behaved  men,  were 
to  enter  a  mixed  company  without  being 
known,  he  would  strike  every  one  as  a 
strange  phenomenon. 

His  face,  in  w^hich  the  soft  traits  of  child- 
hood mingle  with  the  harsher  features  of 
manhood,  and  a  heart-winning  friendliness 
with  thoughtful  seriousness  tinctured  with  a 
slight  tinge  of  melancholy ;  his  naivete,  his 
confidential  openness,  and  his  often  more 
than  childish  inexperience,  combined  with  a 
kind  of  sageness,  and  (though  without  af- 
fectation,) with  something  of  the  gravity  of  a 
man  of  rank  in  his  speech  and  demeanor; 
then,  the  awkwardness  of  his  language,  some- 
times at  a  loss  for  words  and  sometimes 
using  such  as  have  a  harsh  and  foreign  sound, 
as  well  as  the  stiffness  of  his  deportment  and 
his  unpliant  movements; — all  these,  make 
him  appear  to  every   observant  eye,  as  a 


155 

mingled  compound  of  child,  youth,  and  man, 
while  it  seems  impossible  at  the  first  glance, 
to  determine  to  which  compartment  of  life, 
this  prepossessing  combination  of  them  all 
properly  belongs. 

In  his  mind,  there  appears  nothing  of 
genius ;  not  even  any  remarkable  talent  ;  * 
what  he  learns,  he  owes  to  an  obstinately 
persevering  application.  Also  the  wild  flame 
of  that  fiery  zeal,  with  which  in  the  begin- 
ning he  seemed  anxious  to  burst  open  all 
the  gates  of  science,  has  long  since  been  ex- 
tinguished. In  all  things  that  he  undertakes, 
he  remains  stationary,  either  at  the  com- 
mencement, or  when  arrived  at  mediocrity. 
Without  a  spark  of  fancy,  incapable  of  ut- 
tering a  single  pleasantry,  or  even  of  un- 
derstanding a  figurative  expression,  he  pos- 
sesses dry,  but  thoroughly  sound  common 

*  Except  for  horsemanship,  of  which  he  was  al- 
ways passionately  fond.  In  managing  his  horse,  as 
well  as  in  mounting  and  dismounting  with  dexterity 
and  elegance,  he  equals  the  most  skilful  riding  master. 
To  many  of  our  most  distinguished  officers,  Caspar  is 
in  this  respect  an  object  of  admiration. 


156 

sense,  and  in  respect  to  things  which  directly 
concern  his  person  and  which  lie  within  the 
narrow  sphere  of  his  knowledge  and  expe- 
rience, he  shows  an  accuracy,  and  an  acute- 
ness  of  judgment,  which  might  shame  and 
confound  many  a  learned  pedant. 

In  understanding  a  man,  in  knowledge  a 
little  child,  and  in  many  things  more  ignorant 
than  a  child,  the  whole  of  his  language  and 
demeanor,  shows  often  a  strangely  contrast- 
ed mingling  of  manly  with  childish  beha- 
viour. With  a  serious  countenance  and  in  a 
tone  of  great  importance,  he  often  utters 
things,  which  coming  from  any  other  person 
of  the  same  age  would  be  called  stupid  or 
silly;  but  which  coming  from  him,  always 
force  upon  us  a  sad  compassionate  smile. 
It  is  particularly  farcical,  to  hear  him  speak 
of  the  future  plans  of  his  life  ;  of  the  man- 
ner, in  which,  after  having  learned  a  great 
deal  and  earned  money,  he  intends  to  settle 
himself  with  his  wife,  whom  he  considers  as 
an  indispensable  part  of  domestic  furniture. 

He  never  thinks  of  a  wife  in  any  other 
manner  than  as  a  house-keeper,  or  as  an 


157 

upper  servant,  whom  a  man  may  keep  as 
long  as  she  suits  him,  and  may  turn  away 
again,  if  she  frequently  spoils  his  soup,  and 
does  not  properly  mend  his  shirts  or  brush 
his  coats,  &;c. 

Mild  and  gentle,  without  vicious  inclina- 
tions, and  without  passions  and  strong  emo- 
tions, his  quiet  mind  resembles  the  smooth 
mirror  of  a  lake  in  the  stillness  of  a  moon- 
light night.  Incapable  of  hurting  an  animal, 
compassionate  even  to  the  worm,  which  he 
is  afraid  to  tread  upon,  timid  even  to  cow- 
ardice,*" he  will  nevertheless  act  regardless 
of  consequences,  and  even  without  forbear- 
ance, according  to.  his  own  convictions, 
whenever  he  thinks  it  necessary,  to  defend 
or  to  execute  purposes,  which  he  has  once 
perceived  and  acknowledged  to  be  right.  If 
he  feels  himself  oppressed  in  his  situation, 
he  will  long  bear  it  patiently,  and  will  en- 
deavor to  get  out  of  the  way  of  the  person 
who  is  thus  troublesome  to  him,  or  he  will 


^  Particularly^  since  the  attempt  [made  to  murder 
him. 

14 


158 

V,. 

endeavor  to  ejffect  a  change  in  his  conduct,  by 
mild  expostulations ;  but  finally,  if  he  can- 
not help  himself  in  any  other  manner,  as 
soon  as  an  opportunity  of  doing  so  offers,  he 
will  very  quiedy  slip  off  the  bonds  that  con- 
fine him;  yet  without  bearing  the  least 
malice  against  him  who  may  have  injured 
him.  He  is  obedient,  obliging,  and  yielding ; 
but,  the  man  that  accuses  him  wrongfully,  or 
asserts  to  be  true  what  he  believes  to  be  un- 
true, need  not  expect,  that  from  mere  com- 
plaisance or  from  other  considerations,  he 
will  submit  to  injustice  or  to  falsehood ;  he 
will  always  modestly,  but  firmly,  insist  upon 
his  right ;  or  perhaps,  if  the  other  seems  in- 
clined obstinately  to  maintain  his  ground 
against  him,  he  will  silently  leave  him. 

As  a  mature  youth  who  has  slept  away 
his  childhood  and  boyhood,  too  old  to  be 
considered  as  a  child,  and  too  childishly 
ignorant  to  be  regarded  as  a  young  man ; 
without  companions  of  an  equal  age ;  with- 
out country,  and  without  parents  and  rela- 
tions ;  as  it  were  the  only  being  of  his  kind — 
every  moment  reminds  him  of  his  solitude 
amidst  the  bustle  of  the  world  that  presses 


159 

upon  him ;  of  his  weakness,  feebleness  and 
inability  to  combat  against  the  power  of 
those  contingencies  that  rule  his  fate ;  and 
above  all,  of  the  dependence  of  his  person 
upon  the  favor  or  disfavor  of  men.  Hence, 
his  expertness  in  observing  men,  which  was 
almost  forced  upon  him  by  the  necessity  of 
self-defence  ;  hence  the  circumspect  acute- 
ness — which  byill  disposed  persons  has  been ' 
called  slyness  and  cunning  —  with  which  he 
quickly  seizes  their  peculiarities  and  foibles, 
and  knows  how  to  accommodate  himself  to 
those  who  are  able  to  do  him  good  or  harm, 
to  avoid  offences,  to  oblige  them,  adroitly  to 
make  known  to  them  his  wishes,  and  to  ren- 
der the  good  will  of  his  favorers  and  friends 
serviceable  to  him.  Neither  childish  tricks 
and  wanton  pranks,  nor  instances  of  mischief 
and  malice,  can  be  laid  to  his  charge  ;  for 
the  first,  he  possesses  too  much  cool  deliber- 
ation and  seriousness,  and  for  the  latter,  he 
possesses  too  much  good  nature,  combined 
with  a  love  of  justice,  by  the  dictates  of 
which  he  regulates  his  conduct  with  a  scru- 
pulous exactness,  which  without  affectation 
approaches  even  to  pedantry. 


160 

One  of  the  greatest  errors  committed  in 
the  education  of  this  young  man  and  in  the 
formation  of  his  mind,  was  evidently,  that, 
instead  of  forming  his  mind  upon  a  model  of 
common  humanity  suited  to  his  individual 
peculiarities,  he  was  sent  a  year  or  two  ago 
to  the  gymnasium,  where  he  was  besides, 
made  to  commence  in  a  higher  class.*  This 
poor  neglected  youth,  who  but  shortly  be- 
fore, had  for  the  first  time  cast  a  look  into 
the  world,  and  who  was  still  deficient  in  so 
much  knowledge  which  other  children  ac- 
quire at  their  mother's  breast  or  in  the  laps 
of  their  nurses,  was  suddenly  obliged  to  tor- 
ment his  head  with  the  latin  grammar  and 
latin  exercises ;  with  Cornelius  Nepos,  and, 
finally  even  v/iih  Caesar's  Commentaries. 

Screwed  into  the  common  forms  of  school 

*  From  this  situation  he  has,  however,  since  I  have 
been  writing  this  small  work,  been  delivered  by  the 
generosity  of  the  noble  Earl  of  Stanhope,  who  has 
formally  adopted  him  as  his  foster-son. 

He  lives  now  at  Ansbach,  where  he  has  lately  been 
put  under  the  care  of  an  able  schoolmaster,  who  has 
taken  him  to  the  bouse.  Some  time  hence  he  will, 
under  safe  conduct,  follow  his  beloved  foster-father  to 
England. 


161 

education,  his  mind  suffered  as  it  were  its  sec- 
ond imprisonment.  As  formerly  the  walls  of 
his  dungeon,  so  now,  the  walls  of  the  school 
room  excluded  him  from  nature  and  from  life ; 
instead  of  useful  things  he  was  made  to  learn 
words  and  phrases,  the  sense  of  which,  and 
their  relation  to  things  and  conceptions,  he 
was  unable  to  comprehend ;  and  thus,  his 
childhood  was,  in  the  most  unnatural 
manner  lengthened.  While  he  was  thus 
wasting  his  time  and  the  sufficiently  scanty 
powers  of  his  mind  upon  the  dry  trash  of  a 
grammar  school,  his  mind  continued  to 
starve,  for  want  of  the  most  necessary  know- 
ledge of  things  which  might  have  nourished 
and  exhilarated  it,  which  might  have  given 
him  some  indemnification  for  the  loss  of  his 
youth,  and  might  have  served  as  a  foundation 
for  some  useful  employment  of  his  time  in 
future.  ''  I  do  not  know"  —  he  would  often 
say  with  vexation,  and  almost  in  despair —  "I 
do  not  know,  what  good  all  these  things  are 
to  do  me,  since  I  neither  can  nor  wish  to 
become  a  clergyman."  When  once  a  pedant 
said  to  him  :  "the  Latin  language  is  indispens- 
ably necessary  for  the  sake  of  the  German 
language;  in  order  to  have  a  thorough 
14* 


162 

knowledge  of  the  German,  it  is  necessary  to 
learn  the  Latin,"  his  good  sense  replied ;  "  was 
it  then  necessary  for  the  Romans  to  learn 
German  in  order  to  have  a  thorough  know- 
ledge of  how  they  were  to  speak  and  write 
Latin?" 

We  may  judge,  how  the  Latin  suited  Cas- 
par and  Caspar  the  Latin,  from  the  circum- 
stance, that,  when  this  bearded  latinist  was 
staying  with  me  for  a  short  time  in  the  spring 
of  1831,  he  had  not  yet  learned  by  experi- 
ence, that  objects  of  sight  appear  smaller  at 
a  distance  than  they  really  are.  He  won- 
dered, that  the  trees  of  an  alley  in  which  we 
were  walking  became  smaller  and  lower 
and  the  walk  narrower  at  a  distance ;  so 
that  it  appeared  as  if  at  length  it  would  be 
impossible  to  pass  them.  He  had  not  ob- 
served this  at  Nuremberg ;  and  when  he  had 
walked  down  the  alley  vtuth  me,  he  was 
astonished,  as  if  he  had  been  looking  upon 
the  effects  of  magic,  to  find  that  all  these 
trees  were  equally  high,  and  that  the  walk 
was  everywhere  equally  broad. 

The  oppressive  consciousness  of  his  igno- 
rance, helplessness    and   dependence;  the 


163 

conviction  that  he  shoul  d  never  be  able  to 
regain  his  lost  youth,  to  equal  those  who 
were  of  the  same  age  with  him,  and  to  become 
a  useful  man  in  the  world  ;  that,  not  only 
had  the  most  beautiful  part  of  man's  life 
been  taken  away  from  him,  but  that  also  the 
whole  remainder  of  his  life  had  been  crippled 
and  rendered  miserable ;  and  finally,  that 
besides  all  this,  the  miserable  remainder  of 
his  respited  life,  was  every  moment  threatened 
by  a  secret  enemy,  —  by  the  dagger  of  an 
assassin; — these  are  the  miserable  contents 
of  the  tale  that  is  told  by  the  clouds  of 
grief  which  overhang  his  brow,  and  not  unfre- 
quently,  pour  themselves  forth  in  tears  and 
sorrowing  lamentations. 

During  the  time  while  he  was  staying  at 
my  house,  I  often  took  him  along  with  me 
in  my  walks ;  and  I  conducted  him  once,  on 
a  pleasant  morning,  up  one  of  our  so  called 
mountains,  where  a  beautiful  and  cheerful 
prospect  opens  upon  the  handsome  city  lying 
beneath  it,  and  upon  a  lovely  valley  sur- 
rounded by  hills.  Caspar  was  for  a  moment 
highly  delighted  with  the  view ;  but  he  soon 
became  silent  and  sad. 


164 

To  my  question  concerning  the  reason  of 
his  altered  humor,  he  replied  :  "I  was  just 
thinking,  how  many  beautiful  things  there 
are  in  the  world,  and  how^  hard  it  is  for  me 
to  have  lived  so  long,  and  to  have  seen  noth- 
ing of  them  ;  and  how  happy  children  are, 
who  have  been  able  to  see  all  these  things 
from  their  earliest  infancy,  and  can  still  look 
at  them.  I  am  already  so  old,  and  am  still 
obliged  to  learn  what  children  knew  long 
ago.  I  wish  I  had  never  come  out  of  my 
cage  ;  he  who  put  me  there,  should  have 
left  me  there.  Then  I  should  never  have 
known  and  felt  the  want  of  anything  5  and  I 
should  never  have  experienced  the  misery 
of  never  having  been  a  child,  and  of  having 
come  so  late  into  the  world."  I  endeavored 
to  pacify  him  by  telling  him,  "  that  in  respect 
to  the  beauties  of  nature,  there  was  no  great 
cause  for  regretting  his  fate  in  comparison 
with  that  of  other  children  and  men,  who 
had  been  in  the  world  since  their  childhood. 
Most  men,  having  grown  up  amidst  these 
glorious  sights,  and  considering  them  as 
common  things  which  they  see  every  day, 
regard  them  with  indifference ;  and  retaining 


165 

the  same  insensibility  throughout  their  whole 
life,  they  feel  no  more  at  beholding  ihem, 
than  animals,  grazing  in  a  meadow.  For 
him  (Caspar,)  who  had  entered  upon  life  as 
a  young  man,  they  had  been  preserved  in  all 
their  freshness  and  purity  ;  and  hereby  no 
small  indemnification  was  given  him  for  the 
loss  of  his  earlier  years  ;  for  herein  he  pos- 
sessed no  inconsiderable  advantage  over 
others.  He  answered  nothing,  and  seemed, 
if  not  convinced,  yet  somewhat  comforted. 
But  it  will  never  be  possible,  at  any  time, 
entirely  to  comfort  him  respecting  his  fate. 
He  is  a  tender  tree,  from  which  the  crown 
has  been  taken,  and  the  heart  of  whose  root 
is  gnawed  by  a  worm. 

In  such  stales  of  mind,  and  thus  feeling 
his  situation,  religion,  faith  in  God,  and  a 
hope  in  providence  founded  upon  that  faith, 
could  not  but  find  entrance  into  a  heart  so 
much  in  need  of  comfort.  He  is  now,  in 
the  true  sense  of  the  word,  a  pious  man  ;  he 
speaks  with  devotion  of  God,  and  is  fond  of 
reading  books  of  rational  edification.  But 
to  be  sure,  he  would  swear  to  none  of  the 


166 

symbolical  books ;  and  much  less  would  he 
feel  happy,  in  a  devout  assembly  of  the  dis- 
ciples of  Hengstenberg  and  company.* 

Taken  by  times  away  from  the  nursery 
tales  of  his  early  attendants,  buried  as  a  child, 
and  raised  again  to  life  as  a  ripe  young  man, 
he  brought  with  him,  to  the  light  of  the  world, 
a  mind  free  from  every  kind  of  superstition. 
As  in  the  beginning  it  was  with  difficulty  that 
he  could  be  made  conscious  of  the  existence 
of  his  own  spirit,  he  is  in  no  wise  inclined  to 
believe  in  spectral  spirits.  He  laughs  at  the 
belief  of  spectral  apparitions,  as  the  most 
inconceivable  of  all  human  absurdities :  he 
fears  nothing,  but  the  secret  enemy  whose 
murderous  steel  he  has  felt ;  and,  if  security 
could  be  given  him,  that  he  had  nothing  to 
fear  from  that  man,  he  would  walk  at  any 
hour  of  the  night  over  a  churchyard,  and 
sleep  without  apprehension  upon  graves. 

His  present  mode  of  life  is  that  which  is 
common  to  most  men.     With  the  exception 

**  He  was  educated  in  the  evangelical-Lutheran 
religion,  which  most  of  the  inhabitants  of  Nuremberg 
profess. 


167 

of  pork,  he  eats  all  kinds  of  meats  that  are 
not  seasoned  with  hot  spices.  His  favorite 
condiments  are  still  carraway,  fennel,  and 
coriander.  His  drink  continues  to  be  water ; 
and  only  in  the  morning,  he  takes  a  cup  of 
unspiced  chocolate  instead  of  it.  All  fer- 
mented liquors,  beer  and  wine,  as  also  tea 
and  coffee,  are  still  an  abomination  to  him ; 
and,  if  a  few  drops  of  them  were  forced  upon 
him,  they  would  infallibly  make  him  sick. 

The  extraordinary,  almost  preternatural 
elevation  of  his  senses,  has  also  been  dimin- 
ished, and  has  almost  sunk  to  the  common 
level.  He  is  indeed  still  able  to  see  in  the 
dark  ;  so  that,  in  respect  to  him,  there  exists 
no  real  night  but  only  twilight ;  but  he  is  no 
longer  able  to  read  in  the  dark  nor  to  recog- 
nise the  most  minute  objects  in  the  dark  at  a 
great  distance.  Whereas  he  was  formerly 
able  to  see  much  better  and  more  distinctly 
in  a  dark  night  than  by  day-light,  the  contrary 
is  now  the  case.  Like  other  men,  he  is  now 
able  to  bear,  and  he  loves  the  light  of  the 
sun,  which  no  longer  distresses  his  eyes. 
Of  the  gigantic  powers  of  his  memory,  and 


168 

of  other  astonishing  qualities,  not  a  trace  re- 
mains. He  no  longer  retains  anything  that 
is  extraordinary,  but  his  extraordinary  fate, 
his  indescribable  goodness,  and  the  exceed- 
ing amiableness  of  his  disposition^ 


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